A message from Dan Brown, SEFS Director, on June 1, 2020:
Dear SEFS Community,
I’m reflecting at the end of a long weekend after a long week. This has been a very challenging quarter for all of us, as we’ve adapted our teaching, learning, and research to carry on in some fashion in the midst of a global pandemic. So many are struggling to balance the important work we do with our obligations to our families, our health, and our communities. I remain in awe of everything you’ve been able to accomplish and applaud you in your work.
Just as the pandemic has had disproportionate impacts on communities of color, based on structural inequities in our society, the recent killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd remind us of the physical and emotional toll of violence that falls most heavily on the Black members of our community. These are particularly disturbing reminders of the institutionalized violence that affects our Black colleagues, students, family, and friends every day. The events in Seattle and other cities around the country have been disturbing for all of us to watch. This is a good time to remind ourselves of our responsibilities as an intellectual community, whose mission is to address complex social-environmental and natural resource challenges, that support and protection for all members of our community is key to our collective success.
At this time, I am reminded of the importance of the work we are doing, but also of the distance we have yet to travel, to become a truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive community for all. We are committed to that work, stand in support of members of our community who are hurting at this time, and will redouble our efforts to acknowledge and address how structural inequities in our society affect all of our work.
To take immediate steps, we will be doing two things this week. First, we will be sharing resources each day that you can turn to for support during this time, and that celebrate and support diversity, equity, and inclusivity. Second, our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee is looking for opportunities for us to come together to discuss and process these events. Look for messages from the co-chairs, Sarah Converse and Brian Harvey, as these plans come together. Feel free to reach out to them or me if you have suggestions.
Sincerely,
Dan Brown
“Building a more just community for each other”
A message from Lisa Graumlich, UW College of the Environment Dean, on June 1, 2020:
Dear College of the Environment Community,
Like many of you, I am struggling to comprehend and respond to the racially charged events of the past weeks. The brutal and needless deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Amhaud Arbery have sparked outrage and trauma in cities across America. These deaths highlight the patterns of violence and suffering that Black people have been and continue to be subjected to on a regular basis while shining a spotlight on persistent structural inequalities. To our Black students, staff and faculty, I want you to know that I see you, value you and wish to support you.
These are hard times. Please do your best to take care of yourselves and each other. If you need help at this time, please know that the UW provides many options. We have comprehensive lists of mental health services available to students, as well as faculty and staff, on our website. I have heard our students’ requests for help, and we have reminded Spring Quarter instructors to act with flexibility and leniency toward students who are experiencing grief, stress and anxiety such that they cannot fully focus on their academic work. If you need accommodations with your academic work, please start by reaching out to your instructor or student advisors.
In the coming weeks, I will be looking for ways we can work together to build a more just community for each other, our college and our world. Many of your units have community events planned in the next week or two and I encourage you to participate as you are able. I would also like to hear from any of you—students, staff, postdocs, faculty—who have thoughts and ideas to share. This is both urgent and unbounded. For those of you who are simply exhausted from the toll of witnessing the racism so prominently displayed in the past weeks, please know that we are here to support you. I do hope that now, or over time, you can share your thoughts and concerns with me and I will be here to listen and amplify.
Lisa
“Lifting the veil: Understanding the clarity this moment offers”
A message from UW president Ana Mari Cauce on June 1, 2020
I’m terrified to go outside.
I don’t know what people see when they look at me. Do they see a strong, resilient, educated woman?
Do they see someone who is their ancestors’ wildest dreams?
Do they see a woman who has friends and family they love?
I’m terrified to go outside.
I don’t know what people see when they look at me.
Do you only see my skin color?
Do you only see the stereotypes others created for me?
Do you only see your fear?
I’m terrified to go outside.
I don’t know what people see when they look at me.
My brothers and sisters are villainized for asking questions.
My brothers and sisters are detained for walking on a public street.
My brothers and sisters are killed for existing.
I’m terrified to go outside.
I don’t know what people see when they look at me.
I wonder when I will be harassed for existing.
I wonder when the police will be called to my door.
I wonder when I will be the one mourned.
I’m terrified to go outside.
— Laura Cañate, MBA ‘18
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,
The last few weeks and months have been a time of jarring contrasts. Community members donating masks sewn by hand to protect essential workers, while mask-free revelers flout distancing mandates at pools and beaches. Groups of armed white demonstrators marching against stay-at-home orders at state capitols with impunity, while for Black Americans the simple act of walking down the street, jogging or birdwatching can be fraught with danger, and even end in death. Too many are left to wonder, as does UW MBA alumna Laura Cañate, ‘18, “when I will be the one mourned.”
Many of us have seen those compelling “before and after” pandemic pictures of cityscapes around the world. The before pictures show buildings shrouded by pollution while the after pictures reveal majestic mountains or vast stretches of squalid, overcrowded houses in the background. It’s like a veil has been lifted allowing us to see more clearly what was there all along.
Periods of upheaval and crisis both test and reveal our character, as individuals, communities and nations. Over the last few weeks and months, I’ve written about the courage and creativity of so many in our community. I’ve never been prouder of our faculty, students and staff, and I am confident that we can and will continue to learn and grow together, building toward a healthier future for all.
But first, we must seize the clarity this moment offers. Painful though it may be, we must face up to the inequities this pandemic has laid bare and the ugliness that it has revealed. We ARE all in this together, I wear a mask not to protect me, but to protect you. And it is also unquestionably true that we are not all on equal footing. There are class and race differences. not only in who can work from home and who must venture out, but in who has kept their job and who hasn’t. While low-income and communities of color are more apt to work at jobs that require them to be there in person, these same jobs are less likely to come with health care or sick leave. These communities are more apt to be in neighborhoods characterized by overcrowding and with less access to healthy food choices and recreational activities, conditions that no doubt play a role in the fact that people of color are more apt to suffer complications and even death from COVID-19.
These structural inequities — and the institutional racism that they reflect — create and amplify the conditions that led to the appalling ugliness that we’ve seen in the last few days and weeks — laid bare once again by ubiquity of cellphone cameras. The post-pandemic goal should not be to go back to the way it was. We must do better. As we enter into a period where a new vigilance around hygiene and closeness will become habitual, and where we measure the consequences of our individual actions not just by their effect on our own health, but on how they might affect our family and friends, let’s create a “new normal” where attention to issues of equity becomes habitual as well. In this community, in our community, we can and we will continue our work to address issues of equity, racism and bias. The veil has been lifted. We cannot give up — or go back.
Laura, I see you, I hear you. I know the smart, strong, sensitive woman that you are. I know your pain. My brother has been murdered next to yours, leaving a hole in my heart and life that can never be filled. And to you and all Black students, faculty and staff, while I can only imagine what it’s like to walk in your shoes because my light skin protects me from your terror, I can and will walk with you.
George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor — say their names, see their faces, hear their cries. Weep, then act.
Ana Mari Cauce
President
Professor of Psychology