As protests demanding justice sprout up all over the country following the latest in a long line of killings of unarmed Black men and women at the hands of police, we, faculty and staff members of the sociology department at Syracuse University, feel compelled to add our voices to those crying out for sustained institutional change.

We mourn the loss of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. We recognize that their deaths occur during a global pandemic that is disproportionally impacting Black, brown and immigrant communities in the United States., including nearly 23,000 Black Americans who have died from COVID-19. The pandemic has also heightened discrimination against Asians in the U.S. We honor the tens of thousands who have poured into the streets, with courage and commitment, to turn our public mourning into political transformation.

As scholars who study the structures and consequences of inequality and oppression, we acknowledge the deep-seated historical roots of racism in the U.S. that stem from the enslavement of Black people, the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the systematic marginalization of “othered” groups. We recognize that racist structures are built at the intersections of ethnicity, social class, gender, religion, citizenship status, ability, age and sexual orientation. Racism and white supremacy pervade our social institutions, shape our lived experiences and contribute to deplorable economic, educational and health inequalities. The university as an institution does not escape these structures, as #NotAgainSU tried, again, to teach us in the face of institutional violence and suppression.

As educators and scholars, we are committed to exposing these inequalities, facilitating public understanding of their causes and consequences and encouraging both macro-level solutions and local programs of action and reparation. We stand in solidarity with students of color who have taken leadership across the nation and who now join the frontlines of protest even as police and state violence grow more threatening. We call on each other and our leaders, those at SU and those within our larger society, to implement meaningful, lasting change, in collaboration with the multi-racial communities in which we dwell.

 

The faculty and staff members of the sociology department:

Edwin Ackerman, Janet Coria, Jennifer Flad, Cecilia Green, Madonna Harrington Meyer, Prema Kurien, Scott Landes, Amy Lutz, Yingyi Ma, Shannon Monnat, Jennifer Karas Montez , Jackie Orr, Arthur Paris, Gretchen Purser, Rebecca Schewe, Merril Silverstein, Tara Slater, and Janet Wilmoth.

 

Published on June 9, 2020 at 1:33 pm