Centering Race & Antiracism

The LGBTQIA+ community has a long history of the dual reality of LGBTQIA+ people of color leading national and local community change that centers intersectionality and liberatory justice, combined with a history of racism and whitewashing by LGBTQIA+ leadership and communities both locally and nationally as well as within colleges and universities. 

BU’s LGBTQIA+ Center for Faculty & Staff seeks to center the voices, experiences, and perspectives of LGBTQIA+ people of color. We intentionally center race and antiracism and focus our work through an intersectional and antiracist lens. This includes, and is not limited to, our programming and training, and initiatives on recruitment, retention, campus climate, and policy.

In line with BU’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and antiracism, we seek to:

  • spark self-reflection and critical analysis around interpersonal, institutional, and systemic racism that makes meaning of historical harm, brings forward current inequities and injustice, and leads to transformative change
  • holistically represent the lived experiences and center the voices and positionalities of LGBTQIA+ people of color through an intersectional lens
  • bring forward omitted histories and invisible leadership of LGBTQIA+ people of color at BU
  • foster a sense of belonging and connectedness for LGBTQIA+ faculty and staff at BU that intentionally centers race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and our other multiple intersecting identities (e.g., ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, class, gender, disability, age, religion, and spirituality)

    In our first year, the center has held multiple programs, focus groups, and formal and informal discussions that ask how BU LGBTQIA+ faculty and staff can collectively create an antiracist community and explore ways the center can interrupt homonormative whiteness and intentionally center race and antiracism to meet this aim. The center also regularly partners with colleagues in BU Diversity & Inclusion as well as cosponsors programs with other departments and groups that center race and antiracism at BU.  

    If you want to get engaged, have feedback, and/or want to share your thoughts, please reach out to the center, as we are committed to continually improving and deepening our work. We will also be launching an antiracism discussion group for LGBTQIA+ faculty and staff at the beginning of the fall semester. Please email lgbtqia@bu.edu or any of our staff directly, if you are interested. 

    Additionally, below are several BU antiracism initiatives and resources: