We write you as faculty members at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies to express our deepening concern regarding both anti-Black racism and the violence of the police this past weekend.

This is not the story of a single episode of violence. The murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the law enforcement officials are the most recent chapter in a longer history of violence, systems of oppression, and prejudice. As scholars of mass violence that is often racially motivated, we know that what makes these acts of brutality all the more devastating are their long-term consequences. The ongoing violence that cuts short the lives of Black Americans reflects and reinforces the structural inequalities that have reverberated long after the eradication of slavery. It also produces a vast silence created by the unrealized potential of lost generations of poets, artists, teachers, politicians, scholars, activists, mothers, and fathers.

The protests that emerged across the country over this past weekend and the brutality of the police response have inspired a national conversation about police reform and anti-Black racism. It is not the first time we have had such a conversation. One only has to check the newspaper headlines following the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice in 2014, Sandra Bland in 2015 to trace the rise and subsequent disappearance of national discussions. As a community committed to the study of injustice and violence we then ask: how can we support sustained discussions about the ongoing violence in our midst and what can we do to encourage those discussions to contribute to tangible change? Such inquiries are all the more important in a moment when some political leaders condone the militarization of our communities.

The pandemic makes examining these challenging questions even more difficult, because it forces us to sustain our intellectual community at a distance. Nevertheless, as a center dedicated to the study of genocide and extreme violence, we have the intellectual resources necessary to analyze histories of race, racism, and police brutality. In the coming months, we will continue to deepen our commitment to creating programming, courses, and research that provide opportunities to think critically about histories of violence, racism, and justice in our own context and far beyond it.

A statement like this is merely one step. It will be of much greater importance how we collectively and individually take actions to realize the commitments we have made in this moment of crisis.

Taner Akçam, Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian & Stephen and Marian Mugar Professor
Ken MacLean, Professor
Thomas Kühne, Strassler Colin Flug Chair
Frances Tanzer, Rose Professor
Executive Director Mary Jane Rein