Recent violence across the nation, including the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, underscores that dismantling systemic racism is not an academic abstraction or a choice. It is an obligation right in front of us, not only as staff of the State Education Resource Center but within our duty as educators, citizens of this nation, members of the global community, and human beings. Buffalo in 2022, like Charleston in 2015 and Tulsa in 1921 and every senseless incident past and present that ends innocent Black lives, is not one more isolated tragedy; this happens again and again and again because racism is a systemic threat woven into the nation’s story. We wish we could end all hate, but we can meet our responsibility to respond to it the best way we know how: educating to build understanding and empowerment, centering the voices of our brothers and sisters who regularly feel left out or targeted for who they are, and confronting the oppression that would silence them. When we offer platitudes of sympathy but deny that it was systemic racism that deliberately brought terror to a routine day, we tolerate more violence and yet another period of mourning. Instead, we must continue to strengthen our resolve on behalf of all who came before and for those we mourn today. Their beautiful lives, the pain of those they left behind, the trauma of the witnesses, and the fear in so many of our communities demand we fight unequivocally against white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-Blackness, and racism in all of its forms. SERC needs and welcomes partners in this fight.