On Saturday, August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed eighteen-year-old Black student, was shot multiple times and killed by Police Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. After more than three months of protests and marches demanding justice, the St. Louis County Prosecutor announced that Officer Wilson would not be indicted on any charges.

On Thursday, July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, an unarmed, asthmatic father of six, was strangled by Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Staten Island, New York for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. A video of the incident was recorded by a private citizen and widely circulated in mainstream news outlets and on social media. On Wednesday, December 3, 2014 we learned that a Staten Island grand jury would not indict Officer Pantaleo, either.

We, the members of the Africana Studies Group, along with the many individuals and organizations that have supported us, write this statement in solidarity with the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the people of Ferguson, Missouri, and the too numerous others who have lost loved ones due to police brutality. The continual legitimization of police brutality, which disproportionately affects Black and Latino people, must come to an end.

The Africana Studies Group at the CUNY Graduate Center has long provided physical and intellectual spaces for Black and Latino students struggling against structural racism, racist epistemologies, and racial violence. The creation of the Africana Studies Certificate as a means of countering anti-Black pedagogies is just one example of this commitment. We must dig deeper and do more. As the Graduate Center seeks to position itself as the premier institution for postgraduate education in the city and the nation, we ask that the university administration make the choice to stand on the right side of history and commit to working against anti-Black violence and oppression in action and in word.

Our call to action is clear. Membership in the academy does not shield us from the pain, terror and violence of police brutality, nor should it. As students at the Graduate Center, our commitment to the liberation and empowerment of Black and Latino people across the city of New York and the African diaspora runs deep. Black and Latino students at the Graduate Center reside and conduct research in New York communities that suffer racial, economic and police oppression. We also teach Black and Latino students who come from these communities. They are our family, our friends and our neighbors. Black and Latino graduate students must constantly navigate multiple intersections of oppression, especially in light of the fact that we comprise a marginal percentage of the student body at the Graduate Center and in most of the CUNY departments in which we teach. For many of us, it is the very knowledge of this constant struggle against oppression that draws us to postgraduate education.

We are a part of the beloved community. Indeed, our intimate knowledge of the struggle against racial, economic and police oppression makes us acutely aware of the ways in which the Graduate Center is obligated to not only issue a statement condemning the aforementioned grand jury decisions, but to become actively and politically engaged in issues that impact its Black and Latino graduate student body and faculty.

The City University of New York is legally mandated to serve the people of New York. The Graduate Center must stand with CUNY’s Black and Latino students, who comprise over 50% of CUNY’s student body, and who must mourn the state-sanctioned killings of members of their community on a local and national level every 28 hours.

We call on the Graduate Center to make a statement that supports the activist legacy of Black and Latino student organizations like the Africana Studies Group and to stand with Black and Latino communities battling state-sanctioned violence, racist repression and police brutality.

We ask that this statement unequivocally condemn all anti-Black violence, including but not limited to the murders of Michael Brown, Tanesha Anderson, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, and Shantel Davis.

We demand an increase in the number of Black and Latino faculty members whose scholarship demonstrates a commitment to Black and Brown liberation and who are themselves committed to community activism and the mentorship of Black and Latino students.

We seek a forceful affirmation of the power of education to counter racist violence and anti-Black oppression.

We do this as your colleagues and allies in the struggle for social change.

In Solidarity,

The Africana Studies Group

Kristin Leigh Moriah
Christine A. Pinnock