The faculty advisors of ShoutOut! JMU, JMU’s Feminist Blog, condemn anti-Black racist violence and the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Atatiana Jefferson, and the vigilante murder of Ahmaud Arbery. We recognize these are not isolated murders – anti-Black state sanctioned violence grounded in systems of white supremacy has created generations of trauma and pain in Black communities across the nation. As a blogging community committed to the ongoing effort of dismantling systems of oppression by empowering students’ feminist advocacy,
we stand in solidarity to unequivocally shout out:
Black Lives Matter.
ShoutOut! JMU is committed to:
- Cultivating an empowering space where Black students control their narrative and develop their feminist voices, decentering white feminist voices, including our own.
- Celebrating the diversity and depth of Black communities and ensuring brave and safe spaces for students to articulate their experiences and perspectives from varied social identities.
- Mentoring Black students as they develop their feminist perspectives.
- Supporting Black students in building coalitions that call out racist and sexist practices at JMU and in the broader community.
To our current, former, and future Black students:
We see you.
We acknowledge your pain.
We honor your life.
We lift up your words.
We commit to act.
To this end, ShoutOut faculty advisors will be joining JMU’s NAACP Branch this Friday, June 12th at 3 PM in a Silent March from The Warner Commons to The Spirit Rock. Masks are required. For folx with disabilities or who are otherwise at high risk for COVID-19 and unable to march, if you are able to join in-person, you are encouraged to assemble at the spirit rock between 3:00-3:15 to lend your voice.
Following the march, we will amplify the voices of former Black ShoutOut bloggers in an ongoing series to center Black student voices and their experiences over the past decade of the blog. We invite you to comment below to help us continue this conversation, and to consider enrollment in SCOM / WGSS 318 (offered every semester) to add your voice to the ShoutOut Feminist Blogging Collective.
In solidarity,
Melissa Wood Alemán
Alison Fisher Bodkin
Kathryn Hobson
Sarah Taylor Mayhak
Featured Photo by frankie cordoba on Unsplash
ShoutOut! James Madison University 