Thoughts about these last months and days

By Mayor Alan M. Webber

Fellow Santa Feans,

I want to share a few thoughts with you about these last months and these last few days.
For more than 2 months, we’ve been working together to stop the spread of Covid-19. We’ve done it—you’ve all done it—with good faith, good hearts, and an indomitable spirit of community.

After the first shock of Covid-19 we began to feel the aftershock to our economy. We lost jobs. Historic markets and celebrations were canceled. Mom and pop shops and stores were shuttered. Hotels and restaurants were closed. And again, we faced it with grace and courage and that same indomitable spirit of community.

Now comes the shock of a police murder in Minneapolis of yet another innocent, unarmed African-American man. The police shooting of an innocent African-American woman in her own bedroom as she slept. The hunting down and killing of another African-American man by white vigilantes as he jogged through a Georgia neighborhood.

It is right to be angry and outraged by these deaths. They are wrong—just as wrong as the deaths that have preceded them. We are right to point out the racism that is behind them—just as it is right to be angry and outraged at the toll that Covid-19 has taken on the African-American, Hispanic, and Native American communities across the country. These are system failures due to systemic racism, and they are exposed by the Covid pandemic that reveals the historic and systemic racism and violence in our country.

We are living through a Covid-Plus moment: Covid-Plus Racism; Covid-Plus Social Injustice; Covid-Plus Economic Inequality; Covid-Plus Educational Inequality; Covid-Plus defines this moment.

It’s not that Covid-19 has caused these problems. It has brought them back to the surface, where we need to look at them honestly and unflinchingly. There are huge inequities in our system and it is our job to take them head on.

This is the challenge we face now. We’ll face it the same way we’ve done it—you’ve done it—in taking on Covid-19 and the economic crisis that has followed: With faith, with compassion, with respect for all, and with an indomitable spirit of community.

This is a time to come together, to express our shared values, to listen to each other, to care for each other, to respect each other, to stand beside each other for peace, safety, equity, and inclusivity.

This is not new to Santa Fe. Through our long history, our city has faced and overcome many challenges. We will come through the challenges of today stronger, more resilient, and more united than ever.

Stay safe, stay strong, stay together,