CLAS Stands with Communities of Color
When I joined the Social Justice Teach-in on Friday, I learned so much from the lecture given by Dr. Rachel E. Harding, Ethnic Studies Associate Professor of Indigenous Spiritual Traditions. The historical perspective she presented offered clarity on the current state of racism in our culture and community, and she provided constructive ideas for moving forward.
We have so many opportunities to listen to brilliant, sometimes heartbreaking, and often challenging perspectives on our campus. But as the killings of people of color continue, the time for listening alone is over. Racism can be expressed through microaggressions or through police brutality: regardless of the scale, the violence degrades our community. If we stand by and do nothing, we are complicit.
Now we search for a way forward as a college and as an institution of higher education that is willing and ready to confront racism at every level. As some of our faculty, staff, and students continue to take to the streets, we can and should band together to demand accountability from people in power and to call for major changes in policy and law. But each of us can also look to our everyday spheres of influence (classrooms, be they on-line or on-campus, as well as offices and shared spaces) for ways to make them more welcoming, equitable, and accessible for people of color.
Even as we struggle to make Black Lives Matter, the Supreme Court granted a huge victory for LGBTQ+ equality. In a 6-3 decision, they made it illegal to fire someone for being queer or transgender. While Colorado is among states that already offer this protection, making it national means that LGBTQ+ people no matter where they live no longer have to worry about keeping their identities hidden in order to keep their jobs.
While summer semester is underway, and much planning is going into our safe return to campus this fall, let us take time to reflect on the ways that people’s identities impact their experiences on an everyday basis: from their work to their very right to exist. I’m challenging each of us to develop action items to individually as well as collectively make CLAS intentionally antiracist and equitable. We have a lot of work to do, and we will do it together.
Dean Pamela Jansma
From Associate Dean for Diversity, Outreach, and Initiatives Marjorie Levine-Clark:
These last few weeks we have suffered pain, sadness, and outrage in response to the police killing of George Floyd. The protests surrounding this horrific act of racist violence have forced our nation, and the many of us with White privilege, to confront overtly the abuse, marginalization, and dehumanization Black communities and individuals have experienced in a society built on structural racism.
Many of us need resources to better understand the impact of structural racism on policing, on policies, on politics, and on our educational institutions. We also need resources to learn how best to listen to people of color, to be allies, and to consciously practice antiracism. Assistant Professor of Psychology Sneha Thamotharan put together a wonderful website of antiracism resources, which she has agreed to share with the College. We are also including a PDF version, because the site is not yet ADA compliant (we’re moving it to Drupal). While some of the links on the site focus on Clinical Health Psychology, we can all benefit from Dr. Thamotharan’s excellent collection of materials on understanding antiracism, mental health, and self-reflection. She has suggested that this website become collaborative: she welcomes additions from other disciplines and general resources. If you have links you would like to share, please email them to marjorie.levine-clark@ucdenver.edu. Thank you Dr. Thamotharan!
A final note: tomorrow, Friday, June 19, is Juneteenth, the celebration marking the end of slavery. It seems especially important to stress the significance of this holiday this year, to take time to rejoice but also to reflect intentionally that emancipation did not mean the end of white supremacy.
