To our Black students, faculty, staff, community partners, and allies,
We write to express our individual and collective distress and anger at the events unfolding around us. The history of structural racism in the United States goes back to the founding of our nation; the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police officers are the latest in a long line of historical violence against Black people in the United States.
As a library staff:
- We acknowledge and denounce the systemic perpetration of racism and social injustices enacted upon Black people throughout our nation’s history.
- We stand in unity and solidarity with you in the fight against oppression and racism. We pledge to work as a library towards social justice, employing the values of advocacy, equity, and inclusion.
- We affirm Fitchburg State’s commitment to education justice. We commit to a critical examination of our own policies, practices, and attitudes to incorporate anti-racism into our professional practice and daily work. This includes assessing any role we have played in the silencing of oppressed and underrepresented voices.
- We pledge to provide access to information, resources, and programming that works towards dismantling the racist systems on which our country has been built, as well as the many other insidious forms of inequality that persist in our society.
#BlackLivesMatter
The Staff of the Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio Library
