June 5th, 2020

The department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies joins many others in our community in expressing grief and outrage at the murder of GEORGE FLOYD, DAVID MCATEE, BREONNA TAYLOR, TONY MCDADE, ATATIANA JEFFERSON, KAYLA MOORE, among too many other Black Americans. We know that this racial violence is woven into the fabric of the United States and we must put our efforts towards changing the structure and institutions that perpetuate it. We say BLACK LIVES MATTER and #SAYHERNAME.

Every day in our classrooms we discuss and debate issues of power, privilege, and the systemic conditions of inequality and domination. We grapple with forms of discrimination and draw critical knowledge from our explorations and analysis. We use lenses of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability to frame our perspectives. We challenge ourselves to see through, and past white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, and class-based ideologies that legitimize inequality across all areas of lived experience. These are the skills that can help us to both understand and respond to state-sanctioned violence against people of color. These understandings will help us chart paths forward toward another, better world, recognizing we each have different roles to play. People will respond to this moment of both grief and spirited resistance differently.

We encourage you to seek help if you need it, reach out to others, and hold each other up.

We endorse the statement issued by National Women’s Studies Association: https://www.nwsa.org/news/511253/Statement-in-Support-of-Black-Lives-and-Protests-against-Police-and-State-Violence.htm