Write In Solidarity: Black Rams Matter

June 2020

Dear CSU Community,

At a time of global pandemic, we also bear witness to acts of police brutality against Black Americans and to the legacy of systemic racism that threads through America’s institutions. The recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others are deeply saddening. Their loss calls us to stand, speak, and shout out against racial injustice in all its manifestations.

We at CSU Writes stand in solidarity with President McConnell, the Office of the Vice President for Diversity (VPD), and all CSU colleges, departments and programs who have spoken out to affirm that Black lives matter and that Black Rams Matter.

We come together at CSU as anti-racists and as allies to stand up and to speak out against systemic racism. We come together in multiple and powerful ways to compel change: Some of us will march. Some of us will share and console. Some of us will research and study. Some of us will propose solutions. Together, as a research institution, we will listen. We will hear. We will learn. And, eventually, we will write.

CSU Writes is committed to our coming together to research and produce scholarship in ways that affirm the belonging of all who make up our academic community and to celebrating the kaleidoscopic differences among us. 

As part of our learning and sharing, we have a list of resources that are specific to issues of racism in higher education. In these documents, we hear Robert Seller’s exhaustion as a Black academic; we learn from Sheila Gregory’s history of Black women academics; and we confront the new Jim Crow in post-Civil Rights America. 

Below are guides from academics of color about how to build a career in academe and corresponding calls for racial justice in British colleges and universities. And, for continually updated resources on anti-racism, see the resources and blogs on the VPD website.

In solidarity,

Kristina Quynn, Director CSU Writes

CSU Writes Team