Statement of Solidarity from the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies

The César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies demands justice for the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McAtee, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, and hundreds others who have lost their lives to a national epidemic of police brutality and white supremacy. Our community includes Black people with roots throughout Latin America. In the United States, we are neighbors and family, as well. We know the pain and injustice of white supremacist institutions, including law enforcement, and we join the Black community in condemning all forms of racist violence.

Beyond the arrest and prosecution of all four officers involved in the murder of George Floyd, we support a vision of a society in which Black people are free to jog, laugh, birdwatch, and breathe without being criminalized for participating in public life.

We recognize the severity of this crisis in the midst of another crisis, a global pandemic that disproportionately affects Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. COVID-19 has unequivocally revealed how social inequalities directly and deeply impact the health and economic wellbeing of those most marginalized by white supremacy and heteropatriarchy. As a department, we will continue to conduct research and teaching in the service of social justice. We commit to providing the analytical tools to encourage our students to have the honest conversations to end anti-Blackness in our families and communities.

We stand in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives and we support our Black brothers, sisters, and siblings in achieving freedom from enduring legacies of systemic and institutional racism.

 

Sincerely,

César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies