This month’s post, the sixth in Teacher-Scholar-Activist and Spark’s 12-part series “A Year of Activism: Perspectives on the 2020 U.S. Elections,” comes from Don Unger (University of Mississippi) and Liz. Lane (University of Memphis), members of the Spark Editorial Collective. Drs. Unger and Lane use their post to amplify voices from various organizations in writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies in an attempt to move toward building an anti-racist coalition across these fields. Finally, they offer links to resources that list specific actions that such a coalition could take to fight white supremacy in academic workplaces and in our local communities.
In the remaining months leading up to the U.S. elections, this series will feature critical perspectives on those elections, issues related to them, and thoughts about how scholar-activists (teachers and students) can intervene. We encourage readers to share these posts and to discuss the ideas with people in your communities, classrooms, and workplaces.
Liz Lane & Don Unger, Managing Editors—Spark
Darin Jensen, Editor—Teacher, Scholar, Activist
Standing Against Anti-Black Racism Within and Beyond the Academy: Amplifying Strategies for Action
By Don Unger & Liz Lane
As members of the Spark Editorial Collective, we stand in solidarity with the ongoing protests for Black Lives across the U.S. and the world. While these protests reflect direct action taken against George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis cops, Breonna Taylor’s murder by Louisville cops, Tony McDade’s murder by Tallahassee cops, and Rayshard Brooks’ murder by Atlanta cops, they also connect to the centuries-long struggle against America’s racist history and white supremacist system that perpetuates and normalizes violence against Black people. Protestors make these connections clear in innumerable ways, including through calls to defund the police calls to remove racist monuments, and calls to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday.
Connecting these protests to this ongoing struggle to dismantle white supremacy, we believe that there is no meaningful activism that stands apart from the struggle to assert that Black Lives Matter because this slogan and the movement organized around it distills all that intersectional and coalitional approaches to activism mean. Black Lives Matter grapples with the complex of race, nationality and ethnicity, class, gender identity and expression, and sexuality because it means addressing the lived realities of Black people.
Contextualizing this rallying cry and struggle to academia means addressing the lived realities of Black people who work in and for academic institutions, who attend these institutions, and who are impacted by the economic, social, and intellectual policies and practices that these institutions propagate. Yet, it is not enough to simply write about our opposition to racism and solidarity with BLM; we must also act in ways that contribute to changes in the policies, laws, and structures that perpetuate white supremacy.
At its core, Spark seeks to amplify our contributors’ day-to-day work involving “intersectional and collaborative efforts at political change.” In that spirit, we use this statement in order to draw attention to the work that others in writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies have started and demonstrated some commitment to. In this post we do so by linking to and reprinting a number of statements from organizations in these academic disciplines, noting in particular those statements that propose concrete strategies for anti-racist action in the academy, such as the statements from the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing President, the Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication Diversity Committee, the NextGen LISTSERV, and the College Composition and Communication Labor Caucus, among others. Then, we provide a list of resources that support anti-racist work within institutions, departments, and classrooms as well as resources that address anti-racist work outside the academy.
We ask you to read these statements and to use the resources. We call on you to stand behind your organization’s solidarity statements as well as the statements you have made to your personal social media accounts by taking action in ways that move the struggle forward in your institutions, departments, committees, and classrooms. Furthermore, these resources reflect and intersect with the movement to assert that Black Lives Matter in our communities, in the U.S., and in the world. We call on you to move beyond your academic institutions and to engage in anti-racist work in your communities.
Black Lives Matter.
Statements and Calls to Action By Writing, Rhetoric & Literacy Studies Organizations
In the days following George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter-led protests around the U.S. and the world, a number writing, rhetoric, and literacy studies organizations issued statements. These statements range from brief declarations of solidarity to more in-depth arguments about specific actions that their constituents should take to support the protests and to address racism within their academic institutions, departments, and classrooms. Below we link to and reprint some of these many statements as an attempt, on the one hand, to amplify others’ voices in this struggle, and on the other hand, as an attempt to demonstrate how a popular front is building across these fields. In that sense, we link to these statements so that members from various organizations will read what one another has said, learn from them, and turn the strategies described in them into plans for action.
American Society for the History of Rhetoric Statement
Association of Teachers of Technical Writing President’s Statement
Council of Writing Program Administrators President’s Statement
Digital Black Lit (Literatures & Literacies) and Composition’s (DBLAC) Call
NextGEN Call for Action and Accountability
National Council of Teachers of English Takes A Stance Against Racism
Rhetoric Society of America Board of Directors’ Statement Condemning Anti-Black Violence
National Council of Teachers of English/Conference on College Composition & Communication Caucus & Standing Group Statements
Here we reprint some of the many statements issued by NCTE/CCCC groups. We link back to the websites and social media accounts where we found these statements when possible.
American Indian Caucus
Disability Studies Standing Group
Please note that this statement is substantially longer than most. What we reprint in this graphic is a small excerpt.
Resources About Anti-Black Racism & Taking Anti-Racist Action
Alongside solidarity statements, people have been circulating resources on social media platforms about anti-Black racism and anti-racist action. Here, we link to a few curated lists with robust resources that pose strategies for Black lives within and outside the academy:
Created by Joy Melody Woods (University of Texas at Austin) and Shardé M. Davis (University of Connecticut), the hashtag exists so that Black academics can publicly address some of their experiences in the academy, and it serves as a call for higher education to confront systemic racism.
This curated list includes links to petitions and funds, resources for protestors, a map of protests in the U.S. and around the world, and a “more resources” section that links to affiliated organizations and educational resources.
This New York magazine article lists 142 different funds that people can donate to, including direct support to the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, David McAtee, and James Scurlock as well as bail and legal aid funds in various cities and regions. Also included are links to nonprofits that have sponsored and participated in protests, and links to other organizations that support Black people and fight for police reform and prison reform and/or abolition.
Created by Victoria Alexander (Salem State University), this guide provides a variety of resources pertaining to education (for various audiences and including many forms of media) and activism.
Created by the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries and the university’s Anti-Racist Pedagogy Organizing Committee, this guide includes classroom resources, readings for faculty/teachers about anti-racist methods, readings on whiteness and pedagogy, and supplemental resources, such as the “#BlackLivesMatter Syllabus” and a “Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston,” among other things.
By and large, this Google Doc is organized around “stage[s] of white identity development and their corresponding beliefs/thoughts/actions” as they pertain to race and anti-racism.