To Our Black Students, with Love, is a series of letters from the SLCC student body to our Black students. The Office of Diversity & Multicultural Affairs started this letter campaign to show solidarity with our students in response to the Zoom bombing that occurred during the Black History Month Poetry Slam hosted by the Black Student Union in February 2021. Read more letters here.
To the BSU Officers & Glory Johnson-Stanton,
We’re writing today in support of you individually and collectively as the officers and advisor of the Black Student Union at SLCC. We add our voices in protest against the racist and exploitative violence that was used to violate the community and safety that the Poetry Slam sought to foster. It’s yet another example of the failure of our local and national cultures and communities to end systemic racism.
We acknowledge that this invasion of a space intended to amplify the voices, experiences, histories, and stories of people of color is a sad addition to the long list of invasions of the too few spaces that center the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.
We also acknowledge all of the brilliant, difficult, and powerful work that you’ve been engaged in for years. The events you organize and work you do to provide platforms for necessary counternarratives, emphasize the power of storytelling, to truly create a beloved community, and so much more have not gone unnoticed. We are grateful for all that you have done and continue to do as you build upon the work of the many, many Civil Rights activists who have come before you. You are each an astonishing example of their legacies. It is an honor to have you at SLCC. We will do whatever is necessary to ensure that one day SLCC and our community at large deserves this honor.
We stand with you and are ready to support you and the communities that you serve.
In Solidarity,
Emmanuel Santa-Martinez
Claire Adams
Dalia Salloum
Melissa Hardy
Adam Dastrup
Colin Moore
Kati Lewis
Lynn Kilpatrick
Jane Drexler
Anne Canavan
Chris Blankenship
Jason Pickavance
