Statement of Solidarity with Black Lives Matter
June 2020
The interdisciplinary minor programs of Wilkinson College stand in solidarity with
Black Lives Matter and Black communities across the country. We deplore the horrific
murders of unarmed Black people by the police and the systemic racism in police forces,
in educational and legal institutions, and throughout society. We support the protestors
calling on us to say the names of victims of a compromised system of criminal justice:
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Read, Tony McDade, Eric Garner,
Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, and many
more. We mourn the unnamed and unnumbered victim. These tragedies are laid on top
of the longstanding systemic poverty and other social injustices experienced in marginalized
communities for an unbearably long time.
We are all called upon to seek solutions--of every kind, whoever we are, and however
we can contribute best--to redress these wounds and injustices endemic to the country
and world. Martin Luther King said, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere
ignorance or conscientious stupidity.” As educators, and directors of our particular
Interdisciplinary Minors in Wilkinson College, we call upon Chapman University to
instead conscientiously support and expand Africana Studies and all other programs
throughout the university committed to teaching the knowledge, texts, histories, and
social movements born of struggle against racist violence, anti-Blackness, and other
social injustice. We have learned the hard way that “those who cannot learn from history
are doomed to repeat it.” We must teach and learn this history and the dynamics of
this present moment with an investment in education for a future of less shame, less
suffering, less fear, less hate, and more justice, more hope, more peace.
We encourage everyone, including those of us who belong to marginalized communities,
to hold honest conversations about anti-Blackness and discrimination with our own
families, friends, and communities. Covid-19 continues to expose what we have already
known to be the racial and social inequalities that our communities live through daily.
We witnessed the rise of anti-Asian rhetoric and violence, disregard for “essential”
immigrant workers, and staggering infection rates among Native Americans. We need
to reimagine what it means to stand in solidarity with each other.
- Africana Studies Program, Quaylan Allen, Director
- Creative and Cultural Industries, Patrick Fuery, Director and Jamie Larkin, Assistant
Professor
- Disability Studies Program, Art Blaser, Director
- Ethnic Studies, Cathery Yeh and Stephanie Takaragawa, Directors
- Environmental Studies, David Shafie, Director
- Humanomics, Bart Wilson, Director
- Latinx and Latin American Studies Program, Ruben Espinoza, Director
- Law and Liberal Arts, Bas van der Vossen, Director
- LGBTQ Studies Program, Ian Barnard, Director
- Presidential Studies Program, Lori Cox Han and Luke Nichter
- Women’s and Gender Studies Program, CK Magliola, Director
