Confronting Racism

Statement Reasserting our Native American Studies Program's Commitment to Confront and Condemn Racism

We who serve on the Native American Studies Program Committee declare our solidarity with our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community members seeking justice. Our country is reckoning with racism, police brutality, and other societal factors that make BIPOC disproportionately vulnerable to violence, racial profiling, and discriminatory treatment.

Through education we seek to help eradicate racism—in its myriad forms—with a particular, though not exclusive, focus on justice for Native Americans, advocating for human and civil rights, safety and well-being. We are guided in our mission by the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “Injustice   anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."  [2]

Statement adopted summer, 2020 [1]

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[1] Derek Chauvin, officer arrested in George Floyd’s death, has a record of shootings and complaints, LA Times, Officer charged in George Floyd’s death used fatal force before and had history of complaints, The Washington Post, et al

[2] From Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” penned April 16, 1963 while in solitary confinement after his arrest for defying an Alabama injunction prohibiting demonstrations in Birmingham.