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- Something Pacific: An Art Installation by Nam June Paik
Hatred is a powerful communicator. The lives taken from families, friends, loved ones in Atlanta this week exact an immediate devastating toll that screams out now and speaks into an unfolding future. The overwhelming immediacy of this devastation threatens to transform the lives of 8 people—among them, 6 women of Asian descent and 4 ethnic Koreans—into a spectre of expected yet unpredictable racialized attacks that haunt our Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) family. We must reject every aspect of this attack and condemn the hate it conveys. Our own communication matters in moments like this, and we—as individuals and as campus community members— must grow louder, stronger, and unyielding in our rejection of hatred, and especially in our rejection of attacks on AAPI people and communities. We are saddened by, angered by, and strongly condemn, escalating racially-motivated intimidation, bullying, microaggressions, harassment, and verbal and physical attacks against Asian and Asian American community members. Sadly, the public health emergency spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic has been exploited to foster racism, ethnic scapegoating, and blatant xenophobia that draws fuel from and reignites an ongoing history of anti-Asian racism in the United States, dating back to the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) and earlier.
We recognize that these acts of hatred have caused significant harm to our Asian and Asian American communities, and are the latest iteration of a long history of systemic racism in this country. We are emboldened in our steadfast embrace of inclusion and belonging for all peoples. Xenophobic and racist actions are contrary to our values and are not representative of our community beliefs. We stand with, and in support of, all Asian and Asian American members of our campus and local communities. We commit ourselves to having one another’s backs.
The department’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is reflected in our stated values, but it must also be embodied in our actions. We recognize that vocalization of support must be accompanied by explicit strategies to dismantle systems of oppression, especially the forms of oppression that directly target specific people and communities. Moments like this one require a clear articulation of action: this is an ongoing effort that we must willfully take on and integrate into the various facets of our work together, in the classroom, across campus and beyond the university. The wellbeing of our students is always our primary concern. We encourage you to reach out to us for support when you need it, and to care for each other in the face of these profoundly harmful attacks. We are here for you.
The Department of Communication is outraged, aggrieved, and heartbroken by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. We say his name and the names of so many other precious Black lives that have been lost at the hands of state and state-sanctioned extrajudicial violence. Tanisha Anderson. Ahmaud Arbery. Sandra Bland. Jonathan Coronel. Atatiana Jefferson. Charleena Lyles. Tony McDade. Alfred Olango. Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Breonna Taylor. Jonathan F. Vasquez...
We extend our deepest solidarity with Black students, staff, and faculty at our university, with Black communities across the country, and with people throughout the world who are grieving. We declare that ALL Black Lives Matter here and across the world.
As scholars, educators, and activists, we know that George Floyd’s murder belongs to a long and deplorable history of anti-Black violence in and beyond the United States, a history that has been backstopped, again and again, by state-sanctioned military and police violence. We know that white supremacy was integral to the founding of this country and the accumulation of its riches. We also know that, despite centuries of struggle, white supremacy remains intrinsic to not just our policing and criminal justice systems, but also to our political, economic, and educational ones. We condemn white supremacy and anti-Blackness in all their forms and affirm our commitment to fighting to eradicate them.
We have written these statements before. While important, statements of solidarity and declarations of our values are not enough. Offers to listen, to learn, and to teach are not enough. Expressions of sympathy, condemnation, and outrage are not enough. In short, continuing with the status quo is not enough.
It is not enough because state-sanctioned violence against Black people continues largely unabated; because socially-sanctioned vigilantism against Black people continues largely unabated; because institutionalized racism continues largely unabated; because the devaluation, stigmatization, erasure, and appropriation of Black voices and knowledge continues largely unabated.
Dismantling white supremacy demands a commitment to anti-racism and to fighting anti-Blackness in our everyday practices and values. It requires fundamental changes and materially meaningful actions by our institutions, including by UC San Diego and this Department. It requires changing the structures that underwrite the privileges that many of us enjoy, whether because of the color of our skin or the prerogatives of our profession, and it requires concrete deeds that go far beyond statements of outrage and support.
To this end and building on the Department’s historical commitment to struggles for social justice, the Department of Communication pledges the following:
Additionally, the Department of Communication calls on the University of California to do the following: