Last night I published a
photo diary about the #BlackLivesMatter march in Gainesville this past Monday that shut down a central intersection adjacent to the University of Florida during rush hour. I also posted the announcement of the next action which will happen tomorrow, Friday December 12th.
Today at 1:00 pm the Dream Defenders posted the letter that they issued to UF president Bernie Machen yesterday. I share it here with you as a follow up to what I posted last night with no other comment than to say that I am exceedingly impressed with and hope-filled by the courage, brilliance, wisdom and savvy of the UF Dream Defenders and the UF Students for a Democratic Society who are organizing these events.
#BlackLivesMatter - The whole world is watching.
To the President of The University of Florida,
As students of the most prestigious public university in this nation, we write to you today to express our angst and dismay about the recent tragedies in Ferguson and NYC and ongoing around the country. We recognize that as a nation we are still haunted by the legacy of racial policing and that, in fact, the systematic dehumanization of black and brown lives has never ceased. It is becoming more evident day after day that we are not protected; instead, we are profiled, we are murdered, and our bodies are put on trial as these men, these police who are killing us are not being held accountable. We as students of color condemn this injustice, and we summon the faculty and administration to do the same.
The circumstances of black and brown people in this nation are not enviable. Why would they be when every 28 hours somewhere in the United States a black or brown person is killed—every 28 hours, week after week, year after year? This is not, as the media would have you believe, because black and brown men are killing each other. It is because these men are being targeted. They are constantly being watched and tracked in the neighborhoods they live in by a system that has never viewed them as capable of governing themselves nor given them the opportunity to do so. In a society that deems itself to be “post-racial,” it would seem that situations like these wouldn’t be prevalent.
As students, we aspire to greatness at every level. We seek to cultivate ourselves as leaders and visionaries. We seek to rise to this university’s aspirations to be the best in higher education. And because we hold ourselves to these standards we also hold our university to certain responsibilities, among them to provide an education that allows for personal growth, to challenge us to pay attention and urge us to recognize the humanity not just in an implicitly white America but indeed in the black and brown people who have been persecuted from birth.
We compel you to be the institution that changes the national narrative and demonstrates that this issue deserves an honest and frank perspective, not one skewed by bias. Students want to believe UF is indeed an all-inclusive university that cares about the welfare and flourishing of all of its students.
Right now we are waiting to hear that our university believes that black lives matter here and now. We have yet to see any response from our school community, and this leads us to feel devalued, isolated, and moreover, ignored.
Right now, we are in a state of shock. We can’t breathe. We want action.
This is what we demand:
Within 48 hours we expect a public statement from the president of UF condemning both the actions of the police and the failure of our government to hold them accountable for the race-motivated murders of black people in this country.
A response of non-compliance, failure or refusal to act on the part of the president on behalf of the university, will be a green light for further economically targeted, on-campus, public action to take place. If you do not hear us now, you will hear from us, and there will be no more business as usual.
We look forward to your response,
Love,
The Family