Message from the Center
We are deeply saddened and angered by the murder of George Floyd by police, which is one in a line of many. The systemic and historically entrenched racism that takes the form of constant harassment and deadly violence against Black people is unacceptable. We lament the lack of national leadership on this issue and support the protesters taking action in the name of racial justice. As we condemn a system of policing that disproportionately targets Black people, we also condemn a national health system that fails to recognize healthcare as a human right and has resulted in the intolerable circumstance that Black communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
But sentiments like those expressed above must be reinforced by the promise to listen and learn from those who experience the oppressions of racism firsthand and by the resolution to confront racism and injustice directly. To that end, the Center pledges to focus on understanding how we got here so that we can participate most usefully in redressing the systemic failings recently made so vivid.
As a goal of all our programming, we dedicate ourselves in broad, humanistic terms to contributing to the urgent project of dismantling racism.
Specifically, over the course of the coming academic year, we will inaugurate a monthly podcast series designed to examine the foundations of issues such as the racial and economic marginalization endemic to contemporary society. These podcasts will address subjects including surveillance, the role of protest movements, the criminalization of minorities, the U.S. incarceration system, the ties between trauma, history, and place, the legacy of slavery and racism in Boston, and restorative justice. Humanities faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students will be central to this project.
With the support of the Teagle Foundation, we will continue to plan a humanities-based program for low-income high school students, who, despite living in such close proximity to BU, are far removed from the opportunities the University provides. We hope to launch our program, “The One and the Many at Boston University,” in summer 2021.
We will continue our incarceration film series, created by our graduate and undergraduate staff. The series gives voice to the experiences and perspectives of incarcerated people who are recognized as producers rather than simply as subjects of films about prisons. Like the high school program, this series challenges the assumption that the humanities are only for a privileged few.
To address BU’s undergraduate curriculum, we plan to provide funding for an initiative that would support the development and teaching of additional courses in African-American humanities areas, in order to increase the range and number of offerings. We hope that this pilot initiative, slated to start in spring 2021, will lead to a permanent expansion of the curricular focus across the humanities at BU on historically marginalized cultures.
We are keenly aware that no statement can ever be adequate to the enormity of the current crisis, with its centuries-long history. The Center staff — faculty, administrators, graduate students, and undergraduates — is committed to the necessary work ahead. The role of students in moving the University forward cannot be underestimated; but the responsibility lies with all of us. We want to hear from our community about what the Center can do to help the University more fully embody the humanistic values of racial justice that must animate everything we do.
Christine D’Auria, Graduate Intern/PhD Candidate, AMNESP
Catherine Devlin, Undergraduate Staff/CAS ’22
Tamzen Flanders, Administrator
Arthur G. Kamya, Graduate Intern/PhD Candidate, AMNESP
Hannah Kinney-Kobre, Undergraduate Staff/CAS ’20
Susan Mizruchi, Director
Ashley Mulcahy, Administrative Coordinator
Mari Rooney, Undergraduate Staff/CAS ’21