To Our CSJE Family:

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been news stories from the United States about how black people are more likely to die from COVID-19; Amy Cooper, a white woman, threatening to murder Christian Cooper, a black man, by calling the police; the murder of Nina Pop, a black trans woman; and the murder of George Floyd, a black man, by Minneapolis Police Officers (along with protests from the community and deeply hateful and violent responses from politicians). These instances continue to highlight the prevalence of white supremacy that results in the continued violence against Black people since the enslavement of Africans, in the 1400s, in the Americas. 

To our black family, friends, and colleagues: many of us non-black individuals cannot imagine the pain, outrage, and anguish that the impacts of nationally televised violence and the response have on your wellbeing. As you continue to support not only your students, beloved families, and communities, we acknowledge you are holding so much. Nothing we can do as a commission can change the impact but we will continue to denounce white supremacy, hold our communities accountable, and continue to offer support. Additionally, we know how much affinity matters during these times and share that our colleagues in the Pan African Network (PAN) have offered messages of solidarity and care which can be accessed here.

In our efforts as social justice educators, we recognize that the burden of educating non-black folks has fallen on the shoulders of black people and validate the choices that they make to engage or not to engage. We also know that many student affairs professionals in social justice education roles are black and are, and have long been, exhausted by re-educating others about white supremacy throughout history and in the present. Know that we offer you space to process, reenergize, and be in solidarity with others doing this work through our commission and are committed to dedicating time at our monthly forum dialogues for this purpose.

To our non-black people of color and white membership: In our efforts to center Black liberation in our work as a commission, we invite you to explore resources and tools that will help us work toward a common goal. Additionally, we encourage cross-collaboration with our colleagues in the Coalitions. The Coalitions are great for those who want to be in their specific affinity groups to boost dialogue about anti-blackness in the community with those of the same identity. Let us work together to center Black voices in social justice education now and forever in all ACPA spaces.

CSJE’s mission is rooted in anti-oppressive, liberatory, and critical frameworks, which means that we must not only continuously transform ourselves as we learn, but we must also be committed to advocacy within our association, profession, and society more broadly. ACPA’s Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization offers a starting point for this, but it is our imperative as individuals and as members of this organization and profession to put it into practice. At the core of this imperative is love, so we too choose to center love and compassion in the work of our commission.

As a commission, we value education as a tool for transforming the world and understand how education has been used as a tool to oppress black people and to misguide non-black people. In 2018, we changed our name to shift our focus on social justice educators to social justice education because a focus on the individual defeats the purpose of teaching and learning as a collective and co-generative process. Focusing on the educator cedes the power of education wholly to the teacher. As an organization, we must be committed to not only teaching our members but learning from, and transforming because of, them. This is what it means to us to center love in social justice education.