Dear UMPI Community,
On behalf of Allen Salo, President of the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s AFUM Chapter, and the entire Associated Faculty of the Universities of Maine, I am very pleased to forward the organization’s statement on Racial Injustice, Black Lives Matter, and the death of George Floyd. As the statement (attached) notes, ” Racism is antithetical to our values of compassion, justice, human dignity, safety, and fairness. Antiracist actions and speech expose racism and thwart it. In taking these actions, we must unpack America’s brutal and violent history of racial and cultural injustice and the role universities have played in that history.” This university, this System, and each individual within it, plays a role in upholding these values and declaiming and working to end racial and cultural injustice and any practice that our institutions have played in their promulgation.
As Ibram X. Kendi notes in his book, “How to be an Antiracist,” racism is the support of a racist policy through direct actions, inaction, or the expression of a racist idea. An antiracist is one who supports antiracist policies through actions and the expression of antiracist ideas. My thanks to all who are working so hard–through direct action and/or through support of those engaged in that action–to end systemic racism in our institutions, communities, and culture. It is work we must all do.
