I believe that every resident of the Commonwealth has the right to flourish in healthy and connected neighborhoods that support each person’s full humanity and their ability to reach their full potential.
I believe that we have the shared opportunity and responsibility to face our history and the legacies that have harmed and marginalized residents of color, low-income and working class families, LGBTQ+ residents, women, people with different abilities, disabilities, and superpowers, religious minorities, and immigrant families. I believe that, by building collective and inclusive movements for the common good, we can: transform systems built on structural exclusion; foster racial healing and community resiliency; create shared power and values-based decision-making, and; build community conditions that foster inclusive and equitable economic opportunities and political engagement.
I believe that we can strengthen our social fabric to meet the urgent moment and solve the most complex challenges we are facing by acknowledging the inherent worth and dignity of every person of the Commonwealth. And, I believe that every sector of society has a role – from the arts and sciences, to business and government – to play in creating connections between neighbors and ensuring the conditions for shared success and vitality. We all thrive together when hidden potential is untrapped and when every individual is able to live and celebrate their full, authentic humanity.
It is our collective responsibility to ensure that the vital conditions for equitable health and well-being are met and that we make the investments needed to ensure that every resident’s basic physiological, psychological, mental, emotional, and physical needs are met; ignoring any one area will continue to fray our social fabric and our long-term sustainability as a people and as a planet.
We must find the courage to build the future we want and deserve by sharing power and ensuring that our shared human needs are met; anything less leads to preventable illness, poverty, injury, addiction, homelessness, isolation, interpersonal harms and violence, pollution, and other disasters that cause human suffering, despair, and premature death and preventable loss.