The Fierce Urgency of Now[1]
The killing of George Floyd at the hands of police on May 25, 2020 and the following protests – which brought together hundreds of thousands of people in cities and small towns across the United States and the world – remind us yet again of the violence, injustice, and oppression that is still widely experienced by black people and non-black people of color in this country. Black lives matter; the time is far overdue to take action and create a more equal system. To stay silent in this moment is to allow injustice to continue unchallenged. Moreover, words of solidarity and solace alone are insufficient. Without action, our words will do little to combat racism and systemic violence. As faculty, we are called upon to “engage in and provide leadership for addressing the critical social and political issues of our time.”[2] We must be better than we ever have been for our students.
The Department of Political Science at Gettysburg College is committed to fostering an inclusive, safe, and just environment that uplifts the intellectual potential of our students. We strive to help our students understand the global, national, and local contexts of politics, government, and citizenship and to appreciate the importance of engaging in politics. To be true to these goals, then, we must take action to directly address: (1) the ways in which personal and systemic violence are used to consolidate power and silence marginalized communities—specifically black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), and (2) the power of the masses to push back against violence and oppression. If politics is the struggle of who gets what, when, and how, we – as political scientists – need to directly address how national, state, and local institutions have perpetuated a system whereby the outcomes of that struggle are neither equal nor just. Gettysburg College is not immune from such negative forces, but we do believe that we can use the power of our community to do better.
As a department, we have read statements from alumni and communicated with current students. We are listening, and it is clear that we need to do more. Based on these interactions, we have identified a number of steps to directly address the experiences raised by past and current students, which we discuss below. While we acknowledge that this is a process, the time is long overdue to initiate that process and make progress. We are committing to changing the ways that we teach, the content of what we teach, the way that we envision our major, and the ways that we view and understand our own privilege. We are committing to continuing dialogues with our students to ensure that our actions are meaningful, broad-reaching, and more directly anti-racist.
Staying silent about the virulent racism that remains so deeply entrenched in American life would itself be a political decision. As educators, we reject the notion that our courses and curriculum can simply remain unchanged in the face of the persistent racial injustice that pervades our nation and world. Instead, we will move forward with intentionality and “the fierce urgency of now” to do the important and unfinished work of addressing these injustices. Failing to do so would betray the very purpose the study of political science is intended to serve.
[1] From MLK’s speech at the March on Washington; August 28, 1963.
[2] Gettysburg College Faculty Handbook