Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with powdered precious metals mixed with lacquer. It treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. The result is a piece of pottery that is beautiful in its imperfection.

Our world has experienced several breaks, cracks in the very foundations of our society. A pandemic has stressed our economy and our psyches for months and now long-simmering racial tensions have exploded into peaceful and not so peaceful protests against systemic racism. How we react to those stresses, breaks and cracks is what makes our community resilient and ready to face the challenges of fixing what is broken. Because make no mistake, racism on any level – overt, unconscious or systemic – is wrong, must be addressed and ultimately repaired.

As we continue to learn and partner with communities of color to fight injustice, we at the Albuquerque Community Foundation have already taken some small steps, both internally and externally. We continue to grow our staff, volunteers, leadership and grantees with diversity and inclusion as a priority. We have made grants to peaceful race equity nonprofit organizations to show our support. We have also purchased gift cards for downtown businesses damaged during the demonstrations and are supporting resturants and businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color whenever we can.

These small steps continue the Foundation’s larger commitment to increasing investments in community-led diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice projects. These projects support collaborative efforts in meaningful community conversations and peaceful demonstration regarding race and justice.

These actions also continue the Foundation’s work to address the root causes of inequity and inequality in our community. Two programs, both in partnership with My Brother’s Keeper, recognize that economic opportunity should be available to all, especially those who have been historically marginalized. Próspero! and MentorMe fostered creative and innovative opportunities benefitting young men of color in our community. We will also continue to do what a community foundation is built to do – dig deeper into the systemic issues affecting us by bringing people together to talk freely about equity and how we can work together to address inequality. In that spirit, we have scheduled podcasts including, “The Path to Economic Justice” and “Decolonizing Wealth.” We encourage you to listen with us.

We also hope you’ll support us as we bring the community together. Rather than discarding or disguising our faults, let’s begin to repair them. When each of us does what we can to mend our areas of breakage, we acknowledge the value that inherently exists in each of one of us and build a stronger footing for the future.