#ShutDownSTEM, #ShutDownAcademia, & #Strike4BlackLives
Join me on June 10 and make a plan for anti-racist action
Hello friends! Remember April, when I wrote funny (to me) plot summaries of Star Trek? Whatever happened to that? Well, a lot. If you have enough connectivity to receive this newsletter, I don’t need to tell you that the past several weeks have been painful ones, as we have born witness to the continuing murders of Black people in the United States. Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McAtee— each one of these names was an entire Black person’s life, names on an ever-growing list of Black people who should still be alive. For them to be alive and unharmed— that would be what is just. Every other action we can take— whether it is protesting, whether it is taking time to learn about the racist brutality of policing— these are necessary actions, but they can never undo these murders.
Still, we must act. Particularly if you are a white person, like I am, failing to act to eradicate racism (and specifically anti-Black racism) makes you complicit in these (and future) murders of Black people.
Tomorrow, June 10, is a day of action: the #Strike4BlackLives, #ShutDownSTEM, and #ShutDownAcademia. I encourage you to click the links above and learn more, but here’s the tl;dr: if you are white or a non-Black Person of Color, we are asking you to spend the day making a concrete plan of action to combat anti-Black racism in your sphere. If you are a Black person, we hold space for you to spend the day prioritizing your needs.
What an anti-racism plan might look like depends a lot on who you are, and where you’re at in your process of thinking about race, and who you can influence. If your goal is to end anti-Black racism, the path to that goal is going to be made of many, many steps. Maybe it starts with something like talking with your family, and stop letting grandpa slide by with “well he’s of a different generation” (news flash: there were antiracists in his generation too!). Maybe you’re a fan of scifi movies or comics, and you need to ask whether the media you watch or read includes Black people (as well as how they are portrayed). Maybe it means making sure there are no racial pay gaps between people where you work. Maybe it means organizing with your neighbors to address anti-Black racism in your community. No matter where you’re at, there’s a lot of resources for where you can go.
The point is: you need a plan. Don’t sit there retweeting shit and nodding in sympathy while Black people are murdered in the streets. By all means, read some books and educate yourself, but don’t stop there. Don’t stop, at all.
I’ll leave you with an excerpt from a letter written by Brian Nord (co-signed and edited by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein). I strongly encourage you to read the entire thing:
You tell me that change takes time, and that we have to do the work.
I asked you to do the work with me.
I was forced to figure out how to do the work without you.
Then, I did the work.
Then, I told you how to do the work.
I made the path visible, but you refused to take it.
