Dear Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy community,
We share this message on behalf of the concentration to express our profound grief at the state sanctioned of anti-black violence sweeping the US, as well as our support of the global protest against the current explosion of police brutality. In the midst of COVID-19, we are confronted by widespread aggression and violation of fundamental human rights in the US by the police aimed at African Americans and other minorities. Human rights are universal, and everyone’s rights should be treated with respect. We call on all who control the thousands of police units around the US to direct their units to immediately cease this brutality.
We write to state that we believe in the interdependence and universality of human rights and are therefore committed to confront anti-black racism everywhere we encounter it. We admire and support the actions of the movement for black lives to push the country to confront the historical and continuous violence. We echo: Black Lives Matter.
As we collectively rise to meet the demands of holding ourselves and our communities accountable, we simultaneously push to develop policies that place minorities at the center of remedial public policies. Respecting and ensuring the human rights of discriminated minorities is long overdue, and it should urgently lead to new systems that center those people among us most systematically disenfranchised. Our roles as human rights and humanitarian scholars and practitioners is perhaps more important now than ever as we engage ourselves in advocating to reform our own community.
Following the egregious murders of George Floyd, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Tony McDade and hundreds of others both known and unknown to us at the hands of the police, we have seen our HRHP community standing in solidarity to amplify the powerful Black Lives Matter movement. We are proud to know that you, among many others, are amplifying BLM voices across all sectors of society, condemning police brutality and violence against Black persons to the highest degree. And it is crucial that we continue to show up and find our authentic path to further remedy longstanding racial injustices.
For that reason, we won’t prolong in echoing the feelings you have likely read, listened to, experienced, and seen in many avenues of your daily life. We hope this letter will serve as a resource to those who want to thoughtfully take action and is written with an understanding that this reaches each of you in varying corners of the world in a diversity of situations. Therefore, we have attempted to compile a strategic although certainly not exhaustive “tool kit” to enable you to engage meaningfully, wherever you are, however you’re able, and in whatever form that takes.
Below, please find resources for donations and other forms of action, as well as tools to cope, heal and find community, especially if you are in any way personally affected by police brutality and structural anti-black violence.
Finally, we want to stress that we are always here to listen and provide support to our students, both current and graduated. As ever, we are open to and appreciative of student feedback on how we may improve our response and positioning regarding the support and safety of SIPA’s students who are Black, Indigenous and people of color.
We thank you, HRHP community, for your steadfast and enduring commitment to human rights, and we stand with you in forging a path ahead rooted in anti-racist actions and personal accountability.
In Solidarity,
Team HRHP
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