Next Gen Men Stands With Black Lives Matter
Just last month, on Mother’s Day, I watched police officers draw their guns on a 17-year-old.
In my own quiet, Canadian community, in the Waterloo Region over an hour outside of Toronto, drawing their guns on a Black youth. Thankfully no shots were fired. Thankfully no one died that day.
Days before, I had watched the video of the violent and racially motivated murder of Ahmaud Arbery in February, and it rocked me to my core.
Since then, we’ve lost Breonna Taylor, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, and George Floyd—what nearly happened at my front door has happened again and again, on the international stage. Hit after hit, we are told to turn our other cheek and remain silent. However, we can remain silent no more.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to respond to what’s happening. As a co-founder of this organization and current Board Member, I am proud of the values we keep, as the Next Gen Men community.
By engaging men and boys on equity and inclusion, by teaching each other how to take care of our mental health and well-being, we work to build a culture of allyship, championing gender justice at every opportunity.
But it doesn’t stop with gender. As Next Gen Men we champion justice, full stop.
I spent the last week having conversations with loved ones, consuming media, and looking at my four-month-old son. In preparing these words, I have been writing for him, so that he will know what a great organization does in times of great pain, and great importance.
Even more, through this message and through the advocacy we’re committed to, myself as an individual and Next Gen Men as an organization, I want my son to grow up to know what BIPOC—and specifically African, Caribbean and Black people—are capable of.
We’re capable of standing up to oppression. We’re capable of resiliency, as we wait year after year for meaningful change. And we’re capable of achieving that change, today.
As a Black man, my cultural identity will never allow me to stop fighting racism.
As an activist, and as a father with a living stake in the future, I also can’t ever stop fighting for an end to systemic racism, and for the future that I know, deep in my heart, can be ours if we work hard enough.
To all the people in our communities, across Canada as well as in the U.S. and beyond, to the many people who I know are hurt, angry, overwhelmed and emotionally raw—I want you to know that Next Gen Men stands with you.
In classrooms, communities, and workplaces—on the frontlines of the culture change work we do—and looking inward, to the voices we listen to and the values we live by, know that Next Gen Men will never stop fighting this fight, and never stop working to be allies of empathy, understanding, and action.
— Jermal Jones, co-founder of Next Gen Men, member of NGM’s Board of Directors and father of a newborn son