To the Editor,
Naming racism when you see it is crucial for St. Joe’s to begin effectively countering it on our campus. In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King writes, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and certainly a racist event on our campus affects us all. Working for justice is not easy, but dismantling white supremacy involves much more than calling for “tolerance.” Jesus did not ask us to tolerate one another.
As a white professor of English, each time I teach “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” I encourage a focus on King’s less familiar suggestion that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” King’s position holds significant relevance for our own time because racism adversely affects every member of our community.
The administration’s response to racism is disappointing because it reveals a refusal to uphold the basic tenets of diversity and inclusion. This response privileges civility, but masking racism never diminishes its effects. Ultimately, minimizing language subverts any legitimate call for “tolerance” and “civility.”
Of course, St. Joe’s is not alone in attempting to address racist incidents. A professor at Virginia Commonwealth University called security on another professor who was eating while black. The faculty caller no longer teaches there. Swastikas have appeared in the last month at Columbia University, Cornell University and Duke University. Duke has deployed extra cameras and security near the graffiti. Columbia has invited the NYPD to investigate the incident as a hate crime. Racism is not new, but its public and violent display at this moment requires us as a Catholic, Jesuit University to do more than our secular counterparts.
To refuse to accept that racism is built into the fabric of higher education– and our country– perpetuates a narrative of white racial innocence and ignores structural racism. These myths oppress us all. We must do better.
Sincerely,
Ann Green, Ph.D.
English Department
