Dear Politickers,
To be silent is to be complicit. In response to the recent events of state-endorsed racial violence, we find it imperative that we use our privilege as a student publication at an elite, predominantly-white institution to both stand in solidarity with those who are protesting and encourage our readers to support local and national organizations that seek to correct these injustices.
In that vein, The Politic would like to encourage those who are financially able to donate to the George Floyd Memorial Fund or to the Black Visions Collective, a transformative justice organization based in Minnesota. There are a plethora of other organizations that you could also support, particularly if you are interested in contributing to efforts specific to your hometown or region. The Yale Asian American Students Alliance has also compiled a list of funds you can donate to, as well as an anti-racism reading list for non-Black allies. This reading list is far from comprehensive, but it’s a good place to start (un)learning.
If you are interested, various Yale student organizations are additionally holding a phone banking event to demand justice for George Floyd’s murder on Monday, June 1 at 4 PM EST.
Regardless of whether or not you are able to support these efforts financially, please take a stand against racism in your everyday lives—make efforts to be actively anti-racist instead of simply “not racist” and work to better educate yourselves and your communities. For non-Black members of our community, we suggest reading books like Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility or Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, as well as listening to podcasts like NPR’s Code Switch, The New York Times’s 1619, and Kimberle Crenshaw’s Intersectionality Matters! You can access a comprehensive reading list here featuring other anti-racism resources.
Finally, The Politic is dedicated to taking a stand against racism, just as we have asked you to. As a publication, we have the unique opportunity to serve as a vehicle for community discussion and we hope that, in these times, we can continue to deliver on that goal. To that end, we encourage students—particularly Black students willing to share their lived experiences of systemic racism at Yale and beyond—to write articles about the histories of marginalization, abuse, and oppression that continue to inform contemporary politics. We strive to use our platform to elevate the voices of those who have been on the frontlines of these battles, and whose leadership we look to amidst this travesty of justice.
If there is anything that you would like to see The Politic doing to better support you, New Haven, and your communities, please reach out to us. This past week has undoubtedly been traumatic, exhausting, and frustrating for many, and we ask that you take care of yourselves, give yourselves time and space to process these emotions, and check in with one another. As always, you can reach out via [email protected] or email us individually if you feel more comfortable.
In Solidarity,
Hadley Copeland (Co-EIC), Anastasia Hufham (Co-EIC), Shannon Sommers (Co-Print Managing Editor), Isabelle Rhee (Co-Print Managing Editor), Kevin Han (Online Managing Editor), and Connor Fahey (Publisher)