Faculty and staff claim BC ‘exhibits systemic racism and dampens speech’
Looks like you now have permission to walk out of class
BC staff have sensationally backed Eradicate Boston College Racism, saying “we affirm our support of Boston College undergraduate and graduate students who have documented and challenged institutional racism.”
In a letter to The Heights, signed by 61 faculty and staff, the signatories respond to claims made in a November 5, 2015 article “Administrators Criticize Tactics of ‘Eradicate Boston College Racism.”
Images from last week’s Mizzou solidarity protest
The letter said: “It is unfortunate that such a statement needs to be made, but the practices and comments from senior level administration communicate worrisome colorblind definitions of racism and block important student perspectives on oppression on campus.”
The term “color-blind racism” is defined in the letter as “the idea that racism is largely a stain on the past, and that current racial disparities can be attributed to non-racial issues.”
They said: “The very mention of the possibility of racism existing in rhetorically liberal institutions such as Boston College is seen as implausible by many of those in power, thus leaving the mechanisms that perpetuate racial inequality intact.”
The signatories provide an example of an institutional mechanism which continues racial inequality at Boston College. They write: “There is a lack of access to information and policy and accompanying blocks to student-produced work.” (In regards to student-produced work, they are referring to #flyergate and the challenge to obtain protest permits).
They added: “Given the stoppage of permits while more permit processes are created and the ongoing issues of systemic racism, why wouldn’t ‘disruption’ be a just course of action?
“The leadership’s demand for civility blurs the fundamentally uncivil conditions that are visited upon people of color on a campus exhibiting systemic racism and dampens speech about fundamentally harmful practices.
“Calls for civility distract from actions that will change the conditions on the campus that perpetuate systemic racism.”