{"id":1300,"date":"2020-06-04T00:07:04","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T00:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/the-public\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2020-06-15T04:12:50","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T04:12:50","slug":"justice-for-all-injustice-for-none-let-me-breathe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edblogs.pugetsound.edu\/the-public\/?p=1300","title":{"rendered":"Justice for All, Injustice for None \u2013 Let Me Breathe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dexter Gordon<\/strong>
June 3, 2020
African American Studies and the Race and Pedagogy Institute<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREAMBLE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have seen my work\nand you have heard my voice in spaces across the Puget Sound campus, the city\nof Tacoma, and across the regions of the Salish Sea for almost 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have heard me\nappeal to our entire campus \u2013students, faculty and staff colleagues, the Board,\nand our partners in community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have written several\nletters, most of which I have kept to myself and my closest friends. Shared not\neven with my family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eighteen years ago, I\nstarted the work of Race and Pedagogy and the building of the African American\nStudies program with a public letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to crass racism on campus, I wrote to my faculty colleagues with the simple question \u2013 \u201cWhat does race have to do with the development and delivery of your curriculum?\u201d Alongside colleagues on campus and across our community, I have not stopped probing that question since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, in the name of\nthose who like me had their ancestors stolen from Africa and brutalized across\nthe Americas, and to find my breath because George Floyd could not find his, I\nfeel compelled to share another public letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

I have started and revised this letter many times. I have had sleepless nights haunted by the image of another Black man\nlaid out in the streets of America, dead. I am worried for my family. I am worried for my friends and\ncommunities. I am worried for my students. I am worried for my colleagues. I am\nworried for myself, for my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to speak. I have to write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should I begin with my outrage that no one should die the way 46-year-old\nGeorge Floyd died, his body as one more spectacle and a mark of disdain for the\nhumanity of Black people? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protests have erupted and spread across the country. The police\nhave responded harshly in some instances, but in some cases they have worked to\ndiffuse tensions, most notably in Flint, Michigan. In Seattle, authorities are\ntrying to find their way as they seek to affirm the efficacy of recent reforms\nin policing pressed for by local communities. The fact that some protests have\nspiraled into looting and violence, at times in the face of harsh police\nresponses, has pushed the question of the role of violence expressions amidst civil\ndisobedience in the search for justice to the forefront of our consideration. My\nlife and that of my colleagues, committed to education and to social activism,\nis the testimony of my commitment to collaborative, cooperative, peaceful\nengagement as the best way to build strong, sustaining, inclusive societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if I start and stay here, for a while, and like Rev. William\nJ. Barber II<\/a> acknowledge that \u201cNo\none wants to see their community burn. But the fires burning in Minneapolis,\njust like the fire burning in the spirits of so many marginalized Americans\ntoday, are a natural response to the trauma black communities have experienced,\ngeneration after generation.\u201d This is human grappling, Black humanity\ngrappling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, I should start instead with the long history of the ways\nin which the handcuffs on George Floyd\u2019s wrists remind me of the chains of\nenslavement and exploitation of Black bodies, 12-15 million of us stolen from\nAfrica. Or, I could go with the ways in which police officer Derek Chauvin\u2019s\nknee on Floyd’s neck, in Minneapolis, on May 25, 2020, reminds me of\nthe ropes used to lynch Black bodies, a practice that was at its heights one\nhundred years ago in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe, I should reach back no longer than 69 years and begin with Langston\nHughes\u2019 cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   \u201cWhat Happens to a Dream Deferred?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Does it dry up<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      like\na raisin in the sun?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Or\nfester like a sore\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      And\nthen run?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Does\nit stink like rotten meat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Or\ncrust and sugar over\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      like\na syrupy sweet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Maybe\nit just sags<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      like\na heavy load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Or does it explode?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or maybe, I should pair Hughes with Jayne\nCortez\u2019s searing lament from just eleven summers ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they don’t care<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if you’re an individualist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a leftist  a rightist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a shithead or a snake<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They will try to exploit you<\/p>\n\n\n\n

absorb you confine you<\/p>\n\n\n\n

disconnect you isolate you<\/p>\n\n\n\n

or kill you\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or should I go back to the militant Claude\nMcKay, in the incendiary summer of 1919, \u201cIf We Must Die,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with its forecast of 1921and 1923, Tulsa,\nRosewood, and before them Atlanta, Georgia; Elaine, Arkansaas, and Colefax,\nLouisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we must die, O let us nobly die\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am encouraged that many across the nation and\nin our own community are joining the incessant call for <\/p>\n\n\n\n

equal rights and justice, the call to get up, to\nstand up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to find words in this moment — for this\nmoment — because as Jayne Cortez warns, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if we don’t fight<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if we don’t resist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

if we don’t organize and unify and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

get the power to control our own lives<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we will wear<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the exaggerated look of captivity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the stylized look of submission<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the bizarre look of suicide<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the dehumanized look of fear<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the decomposed look of repression<\/p>\n\n\n\n

forever and ever and ever<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there it is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, still searching, I wonder if I might turn to any of my\nchildren\u2019s generation of lyrical expressionists Sa Roc, J. Cole, Jidenna, or one\nfrom this new generation. But here comes Nick Cannon<\/a>, May 31, a bridge voice, who like the lyrical\nBlack voices before and around him testify. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t breathe again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

God damn, I can\u2019t breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our voices are being quarantined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Covid-1960s to 1619.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamestown choked me sold me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shackles hold me tightly by my neck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I can\u2019t breathe again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the words, the words! The anguish. The pain. Will it stay\nor will it go away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably I should stay with today and begin with the observation\nthat trauma piled upon pain and suffering results in grief, anger, and\nexplosive outrage. Since, over the last three months we have lived in horror\nand fear as COVID-19 rampaged through our communities and our world leaving in\nits wake death and destruction especially of the lives and livelihoods of Black\nand Brown people. The pandemic laid bare, long histories of neglect for Black\nand Brown communities. And then one more public killing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am haunted by the image of George Floyd pleading for life. So I\nconsider starting with the ways in which George Floyd\u2019s plea for a single\nbreath, reminds me of 44-year-old Eric Garner gasping in the grip of a police\nchoke-hold. Black people all across the world feel the pain and across America\nwe feel suffocated \u2013criminal justice, economics, health, education. I too feel\nlike \u201cI Can\u2019t breathe.\u201d I too feel the pain, a pain, it is one that connects\ndirectly to my own pain and sense of suffocation at University of Puget Sound.\nThis is a subject I have not addressed publicly before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My pain is born of the sense of disdain directed towards our work\nand the disrespect I experience from being passed over for opportunities to be\nappointed to lead in the work of equity on campus, repeatedly, for years, and\nagain in this moment. This is a moment in which the University has decided it\nneeds a Vice President for Equity Diversity and Inclusion, a position I have advocated\nfor since 2007. There would not even be a question in any context of fairness\nthat my expertise, experience, and my record of achievements make me the best\ncandidate for such a role. In a world where equity and inclusion are valued, I\nwould be urged to take on this assignment. Not so at Puget Sound. So even with\nthe strongest recommendations from my peers and senior faculty in the work of\nequity, the University finds a way to pass me over without even meaningful\nconsultation. Even as I write to survive this moment and continue to teach my classes,\nI have to be thinking about how to respond to this latest dissing and this\ncontinuing act of harm and erasure. As I watch, appointment after appointment,\nyear after year, I wonder! Is there any fairness? Is there any justice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is my experience as the senior tenured Black faculty member\nat Puget Sound. I have provided almost twenty years of leadership on the campus\non issues of equity and inclusion. Beginning in 2002, my work with colleagues has\nincluded inviting our campus to address the critical issues of race in our\npedagogy. Since then, and including six years of significant work with Dr.\nMichael Benitez, who the university did not encourage to stay, despite his\ndesire to, we have been in the forefront of addressing racism and all forms of\ninequities on our campus including in 2018 when we invited our campus and hundreds\nof participants from across the nation and beyond to join us for our National\nConference on Race and Pedagogy, seeking to engage deep thoughtful reflection\nand practical impactful action on \u201cRadically Reimagining the Project of\nJustice.\u201d Re-imagining campus life. Re-imagining life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the connection\nbetween the spectacle of another Black person killed while pleading for life, and\nthe record of recent similar events, makes me want to begin with a statement\nagainst the killing of Black people by the police, including Black women, gender\nnon-conforming and trans people. I want to declare solidarity with Black\nfamilies and express sorrow at their loss, at our loss. I also wish to honor\nthe memory of the many victims. The list is too long. The practice of killing\nis too serial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Floyd is only the\nmost recent killing made public. In fact, the very next day, Wednesday, May\n26,  in Tallahassee, Florida, a Black\ntrans man Tony McDade<\/a> was shot and killed by the police. As Laura\nThompson of Mother Jones<\/a> points out, it is worth noting that in 2019, the American\nMedical Association<\/a> deemed\na surge in the murder of transgender people an \u201cepidemic.\u201d The vast majority of\nvictims are transgender women of color. We honor their memories, alongside the\nmemories of 25-year-old Ahmaud\nArbery<\/a>, shot and killed, by two white men, while he was\njogging in Georgia; Breonna\nTaylor<\/a>, a 26-year old essential health care worker and\naspiring nurse, shot eight times in her home by police. Strikingly, as campus\nleaders from UC Berkeley<\/a> note \u201cAccording to Rutgers University Sociologist Frank Edwards,\none out of every 1,000 Black men in America will be killed by a police officer.\nThis makes them two and half times more likely than white men to die during\nencounters with officers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does all this\nmean for us at the University of Puget Sound and the educational enterprise of\nwhich we are a part? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To begin, we must\nacknowledge that we are witnesses to this moment. We must take a position.\nNeutrality is not an option. We cannot avoid being implicated in this moment. President\nCrawford, in his May 30 statement, invites us to \u201cmake the world a better\nplace, day by day, through our actions, our choices, and our care for one\nanother.\u201d There are also numerous other profound\nstatements available from which to find inspiration. One way or another, to use\nthe words of indigenous and environmental rights advocate, former Green Party\nvice presidential candidate, and 2014 RPI National Conference keynote speaker Winona\nLaDuke<\/a>, \u201cFind your voice. Find\nyour courage.\u201d We must find the will and the fortitude to act in ways that\nprevent a recurrence of this moment. This is a moment that in a literal sense represents\nthe end of the rope for the many victims of ongoing systemic racism. Some victims\nare hidden in plain sight on our campus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another step then is to examine our own home and our own\npractices. An expression of solidarity with members of Puget Sound\u2019s Black\ncommunity is a meaningful step. We might then act with Black and Brown voices\nas leaders. Continually and consistently — not only when it serves as a\nsymbolic gesture of inclusion — we should acknowledge them and their\nleadership in their areas of expertise and lived experiences. Difficult though\nit is, we should choose justice over comfort, resistance and rights over\nreputation. We may then begin to listen, really deeply listen to Black voices. Then\nbelieve what we say. We might act to redress historical harms caused to Black\nand Brown people by our University\u2019s decisions and practices, past and present.\nWe might go further and make sure that institutional actions do not perpetrate\nongoing racist practices against Black and Brown people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we might truly\nhonor Puget Sound values and commit to the making and remaking of Puget Sound\ninto an institution that acts intentionally to distance itself from the\ndastardly practices of white supremacy with its deadly surveillance and\nsuffocation of Black and Brown bodies, and instead treat all people equitably\nand embrace respect as part of our new educational enterprise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In African American\nStudies and the Race and Pedagogy Institute, this is our commitment. So this is\nwhere I\u2019ll start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To our beloved students,\nto faculty and staff colleagues, and to our partners in community, you matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stand in solidarity\nwith our and all Black communities and we are committed to treating each of you\nour Puget Sound students, colleagues, and partners with the respect and honor\nyou deserve as part of our practice of education in partnership with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With appreciation for\neach of you and for every breath I am able to take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dexter Gordon<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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