Today, over thirty Black faculty and staff from Michigan State University and beyond signed an “Open Letter of Love to Black Students.” We stand in solidarity with our students who struggle against interlocking systems of oppression on college and university campuses across the country; who have been marching, chanting, dying-in and standing up for justice and for ‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬. Why? Because:

“We know the stories of dolls hanging by nooses, nigger written on dry erase boards and walls, stories of nigger said casually at parties by White students too drunk to know their own names but who know their place well enough to know nothing will happen if they call you out your name, stories of nigger said stone sober, stories of them calling you nigger using every other word except what they really mean to call you, stories of you having to explain your experience in classrooms—your language, your dress, your hair, your music, your skin—yourself, of you having to fight for all of us in classrooms where you are often the only one or one of a few, stories of you choosing silence as a matter of survival.

Sometimes we’re in those classrooms with you.

We know there is always more people don’t see or hear or want to know, but we see you. We hear you.”

Thank you Rae Paris for your words and for organizing this statement of support.

Faculty of color around the country – Will YOU sign???

If you are a Black professor and would like to add your name, please email blackspaceblog at gmail dot com with your name as you would like it to appear, along with your institution.

— Share WIDELY! Reblog! Repost!!! #blacklivesmatter ‪#‎handsupmsu‬ ‪#‎icantbreathe‬ ‪#‎fergusonnext‬ ‪#‎WashUVoices‬