The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies is in firm solidarity with those protesting for an end to police and state violence and in defense of Black lives around this country and around the world. We support them in calling for justice for the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and all others whose lives and futures have been taken, and whose families have been ruined, by white supremacy. Insofar as gender is at the root of our analysis, it is connected deeply to struggles against white supremacy, settler colonialism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, imperialism, transphobia, classism, and all forms of state violence; these struggles are intersectional, interlocking, and intermeshed. Police violence is therefore a feminist issue; white supremacy is a feminist issue; the defense of Black lives, Black futures, and Black genius is a feminist issue.
Women’s and Gender Studies as a discipline was born of struggle, like its siblings in Ethnic Studies; we therefore understand study to be linked to action. Moreover, as educators and researchers at LMU, our work is rooted in the fundamental dignity of all persons and the requirement to be and to do more, for each other. Struggles for social justice are at the heart of our work, at the desk, in the classroom, and on the streets. We condemn the violence against these struggles, and affirm with our words and our actions that Black Lives Matter.