Addressing Anti-Black Racism in Higher Education: Love Letters to Blackness and Recommendations to Those Who Say They Love Us
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Abstract
We write this love letter to Black students, faculty, staff, executive leadership in higher education, and the surrounding community to center their/our Blackness. We want to acknowledge your frustration and anxiety. The “Dear” sections of this letter are written in raw language, specifically to Black people – acknowledging that it is ok to be pissed, fatigued, and not wanting to engage in performative anti-racist expressions of love for Black people. We do not want you to dismiss your own racial battle fatigue you have been coping with this summer. We hope through this letter you consider centering and recentering your wellness through this pandemic and the recent performative gestures of love for Blackness in academe. We were invited by JCSCORE’s Editor-in-Chief Cristobal Salinas Jr. to write this letter from the Editorial Board Members with the goal “to center and amplify Blackness in academia”.
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