Recently this week we created a display in support of the LGBTQ+ community. On one of our social media posts about it, we were asked a very important question: “do you support all LGBTQ people or just the white ones”. As a local company that has always tried to support all citizens of Kingston, the answer was easy- “yes, we support all LGBTQ people, regardless of colour”. Our intent was to answer the question asked- “do you support ALL LGBTQ members” with a resounding “YES!”
However, when put into the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, some have taken our response of “yes we support all LGBTQ+ people” and equated it with “All Lives Matter”. As a company we would like to clear this up. We do not, have not, and will never support the “All Lives Matter” ideology. We believe it is an argument used to take away from an important conversation and distracts from the desperately needed societal changes in our world.
Some people have asked why we haven’t taken a public stance as a company regarding Black Lives Matter and we have an answer for that. Our stance was that we are an escape room company. We believed that our voice as a company should not be taking up the space in that conversation from other, more important voices. We didn’t think that an escape room deserved a seat at the table in that conversation.
However, what we have learned is that our conscious decision to listen instead of speak up equates to us remaining silent in the face of the heinous treatment of black lives in our community, country, and around the world. That ends today.
Our belief that we should leave room for voices that matter was misguided. There is an unlimited amount of space to say that BLACK LIVES MATTER. There isn’t a limit on how many people can denounce the police brutality that runs rampant in North America.
We want to make our stance public and clear: Sherlock’s Escapes supports the Black Lives Matter Movement. We are committed to helping end the systemic racism embedded in our society that oppresses Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour’s communities. We are educating ourselves on how we can improve as a business, community leaders, and as people and we apologize that we didn’t do more sooner.
We welcome anyone who would like to continue this important discussion with us to do so. It is also our belief that actions speaks louder than words, so we have donated to the Black Legal Action Centre and to the Black Business and Professional Association. We have also provided links to donate to these fantastic organizations down below.
We will listen. We will learn. We will do better.
