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Statement in Solidarity With Black Lives

by pccfa

Dear PCC Community Members,

The Faculty Association Leadership team, on behalf of the FA members and FA administrative staff of Pasadena City College, stands in solidarity with Dr. Gena Lopez’s letter from this week regarding the killing of unarmed Black/African Americans. We support, wholeheartedly, Resolution 20.5, recently adopted by the Faculty Senate, denouncing the killing of our unarmed Black/African American citizens due to racial profiling and racist ideologies, and in doing so, we affirm PACCD’s commitment to the health, well-being, inclusion and progress of Black/African Americans on campus and in our greater community.

We remember the names and we say them so that their murders will not be forgotten and that their lives will be remembered:  George Floyd, Breonna Taylor,  Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Reed, Tony McDade, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Akai Gurley, Terence Crutcher, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Freddie Gray, Sean Bell, Sandra Bland, Oscar Grant, Stephon Clark, Kendrec McDade, Jordan Edwards, Jordan Davis, Philando Castile, . . . 

We stand with our students who have taken part in the nationwide and global protests decrying police brutality and affirming George Floyd’s and every African American’s right to life and we condemn government surveillance and the collecting of data and profiles of protestors exercising their civil liberties. 

We stand with our community members who have taken part in the nationwide and global protests denouncing police brutality and affirming that Black Lives Matter.

Our Commitments:

  • We commit to listening deeply, to taking necessary action on behalf of justice for our Black/African American community members;
  • We commit to educating ourselves and to calling out racist rhetoric where we see it;
  • We commit to engaging in difficult and challenging conversations that reveal our own biases and racism-rooted assumptions in order to foster collective community action.

As a call to action, we encourage: 

  • Support and funding to organizations fighting on behalf of Black/African American lives. Some of these are Black Lives Matter partner organizations and include:
  • #Black Lives Matter, a Global Network that builds power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe; 
  • the Black Alliance for Just Immigration which educates and engages African American and black immigrant communities to organize and advocate for racial, social, and economic justice; 
  • Color of Change, the nation’s largest, online, racial justice organization; the Movement for Black Lives, a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country to articulate a common vision and agenda; 
  • the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,Inc., America’s premiere legal organization fighting for racial justice; 
  • Undocublack Network, a multigenerational network of currently and formerly undocumented Black people that fosters community and facilitates access resources, contributing to transforming the realities of African American and Black people; and the 
  • Southern Poverty Law Center, dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.  

During and following this period of mourning and outrage we hope that we can lean on one another for support and understanding. We also hope that our collective energies will be mobilized in identifying meaningful, productive, long-term solutions to eradicating these deadly injustices against our Black/African American Students, Faculty, Staff, Administrators, and community members.  

The brutalization by police of unarmed African American lives must end. The systemic oppression of Black/African Americans rooted in White privilege must be acknowledged, dismantled, and abolished. 

Together we can do this.

We stand in service and in solidarity, 

The PCC Faculty Association

Executive Board Meeting

2 June 2020