Dear MCC Community,
On behalf of the department, I write to condemn and express grief over the police killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Sean Reed, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor (and the many individuals who came before them), the ongoing injustices experienced by the black community, and the toxic combination of indifference and repression from government authorities. To echo what the Dean wrote this week: the long history of racism and racial violence in this country is repugnant, and we must do everything in our power to fight it, teach it, learn from it, end it.
As scholars of media, culture, and communication, we must continue to document how media and technology marginalize black voices, how institutional and political forces perpetuate unjust cycles of disenfranchisement — and we must identify ways to contribute tangible change through our teaching and scholarly work.
The department has begun compiling relevant books, articles, and syllabi from our faculty, students, alumni, and other scholars and activists and we invite you to add to this list (here) and share it. Our sense of community and obligation extends beyond Steinhardt and the NYU campus. As we look forward to next year we will continue to organize public discussion of the interrelations between the systemic nature of racialized and gendered violence, including the role technology plays in its enactment.
We join in solidarity with those who suffer, those who protest, those who dream of a better world, and those who work to achieve it.
