Phone: (510) 643-1234
Fax: (510) 643-8433
esl [at] library [dot] berkeley [dot] edu
The Ethnic Studies Library Statement of Solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives
The UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library stands with the Movement for Black Lives and its goal to win rights, recognition, and resources for Black people. Founded in Third World solidarity with the struggle for Black Studies, the Ethnic Studies Library recognizes and affirms that until Black lives and power matter, no communities of color are free. Our hearts are with the families currently grieving and the generations of families who’ve mourned the loss of their loved ones at the hands of the police. We move in solidarity with Black communities in this country and globally who experience daily the violence of racism and white supremacy. We affirm the demands to defund and divest from institutions and cultures of policing and prisons and reinvest in community control over its own safety and well-being.
The disproportionate impact of the coronavirus pandemic along racial lines is the most current manifestation of a world designed and architected by white supremacy and anti-Blackness. Communities of color, particularly Black communities, suffer and resist the combined oppression of living under health care, economic, and ecological systems designed for profit rather than for human dignity.
As a library dedicated to preserving and sharing the history, culture and knowledge of communities of color and social justice movements, we recognize the long historical fight against police brutality and state repression led by Black communities and fought by communities of color for generations. We recognize the need for all communities of color to join in solidarity with the intersectional Movement for Black Lives to dismantle racist institutions and cultures. This solidarity represents resistance to the violence that affects all of our communities and a rejection of the benefits of complicity.
We strive to struggle for change both on campus and in the larger community. We will continue to dedicate our resources to lifting up the rich histories of the visionary resistance of Black, indigenous and people of color and challenging the inaccessibility and inequities of knowledge and higher education. We will continue to support the well-being, empowerment, political education, and activism of our communities by holding safe space for students of color, organizing intergenerational events and learning opportunities, and supporting and sharing resources with Black spaces and student organizations.
The frontlines of the struggle for racial justice in our communities vary from protecting ancestral lands and advocating for repatriation, decolonizing library cataloging and classification, providing safe space for political education and activism of students protesting against deportations and Islamophobia, and sharing resources resisting racist targeting and profiling of Asians as carriers of disease. We call for all people to gather for collective freedom in solidarity and support Black communities in their fight for liberation.
