The faculty of Africana Studies at SUNY Buffalo State unequivocally denounce and condemn the recent spate of police violence and extrajudicial killings that needlessly ended the lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, Manuel Ellis, George Floyd, David McAtee, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and countless others as documented by the Fatal Force database. We recognize police killings as state-sanctioned violence and clear indicators that anti-Blackness, racism, and white supremacy continue to have a steadfast grip on our society. Violence against Black people is not new and is a gruesome part of this nation’s ongoing legacy of dehumanization rooted in the twin practices of chattel slavery and settler colonialism. The police violence prompting public protests amidst the COVID-19 is part of a systemic terror campaign disproportionately affecting Black communities in Buffalo and throughout the country. Residential segregation and housing insecurity, food apartheid, disparate rates of un- and under-employment, mass incarceration, gender violence, barriers to adequate healthcare access, and inadequately funded public services and institutions are among the conditions collectively weathering away at Black lives. As Africana Studies scholars, our analysis of Black people’s collective experiences in the United States and the Diaspora align with the activism of many protestors who highlight, disrupt, dismantle, reimagine, and rebuild these systems in order to create a more just society for all.
Africana Studies at SUNY Buffalo State proudly traces its lineage as an academic discipline to the Black liberation movements of the 1960s. Black college students successfully organized and led multicultural coalitions of students and community members to demand Predominantly White Institutions hire more Black faculty and offer courses that speak directly to Black people’s lives, histories, and cultures. Africana Studies scholars research, write, and teach from multiple disciplinary perspectives in ways that center the voices and living/lived experiences of Black people. From our various disciplinary perspectives, Africana Studies scholars create campus programming and community engagements where we insist that advances in scholarship and human development are of little value if they reproduce a white supremacist agenda. We do so not only out of academic interest, but also for the urgent matter of helping to reimagine and argue for an America where Black people feel humanized and safe. We are rebuilding our Africana Studies unit at SUNY Buffalo State around these principles. We are committed to help produce a citizenry that has the human empathy and cultural competence to understand and correct for the inexcusable acts of aggression towards Black lives as demonstrated by the recent events in policing and law enforcement.
We call on our prospective and current students, faculty, administration, alumni, community members, advocates, and activists to stand in solidarity and work against systematic and systemic oppression and violence, in all of its forms, that impinges upon the welfare, well-being, dignity, and humanity of African, Latinx, and Indigenous Peoples. To assist in this effort, we strongly encourage exploring and contributing to any of the following organizations who work towards disassembling oppressive regimes, initiating and fostering love and healing, and creating a more just society: African American Cultural Center; African Heritage Food Co-Op; Black Love Resists in the Rust (BLRR); Community Health Center of Buffalo, Inc.; Feed Buffalo; Food for the Spirit; Fruitbelt Community Land Trust; Partnership for the Public Good (PPG); PUSH Buffalo; The Innocence Project; The Sentencing Project; Ujima Company, Inc; VOICE-Buffalo.
In addition, as scholars from various disciplines who contribute to the richness and robustness of Africana Studies, we highly recommend engaging in contemplative, personal development through deep study, relentless struggle, and thought-provoking critique to strive towards comprehending what social critic Robin G. Kelly refers to as “the historical, political, social, cultural, ideological, material, economic root—of oppression in order to understand its negation, the prospect of our liberation.” Towards this end, we offer the following list of resources designed to support individual and collective consciousness raising efforts around the dismantling of White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Unfettered Capitalism. Just as our ancestors did, we remain committed to the pursuit of emancipation, liberation, and justice.
