Academics: a whole bunch of our institutions are about to invoke the work of scholars in departments born of struggle, departments that these same institutions have tried for decades to defund, in order to demonstrate their commitment to equity. (1/8)
Rather than complain about yet another lukewarm statement, we need to insist upon the provision of full support and resources for these departments and faculty, rather than the scraps and token handouts that administration loves to deliver when it is fiscally convenient. (2/8)
And by "insist," I do not mean yet another committee meeting to come up with a statement of solidarity by committee that will be so hamstrung by political infighting and the demands of white fragility as to be less than useless. I mean direct, concrete action. (3/8)
What that action looks like may vary from institution to institution, department to department, and I'm not fully discounting statements by committee, but we can no longer pretend (as if we ever did) that what happens "out there" is not mirrored in what happens "in here." (4/8)
Especially when what happens "in here" is merely another extension of the violence that happens "out there." So, think about this when administration (predictably) suggests cutting Africana Studies, Ethnic Studies, Latinx Studies, and other similar programs. (5/8)
Think about how the elimination of these traditions of knowledge from our curriculum is continuous with the elimination of Black lives from our society. And think about how our silence on this matter is complicitness with institutional racism. (6/8)
Finally, if we're going to take seriously King's statement that the logical end of racism is genocide, we need to use our much vaunted academic training to recognize that there's more than one way to visit genocide upon a people. (7/8)
Which is to say that we need to think about the elimination of these programs, these departments, these faculty, under the auspice of financial expediency as continuous with King's understanding of racism as terminating in genocide. (8/8)
