Racial Justice
CJS and SOC Statement in Support of Black Lives
The Department of Sociology, with majors in Criminology & Justice Studies, Sociology, and Cannabis Studies maintains an anti-racist ethos and joins in solidarity with a global surge in defense of Black lives.
Our majors, and those of many others in our college, center the lived experiences of Black and other communities of color. We ask our students to interrogate interlocking systems of power and oppression that maintain a white supremacist heteropatriarchal world order and gross global inequities.
We are horrified by the recent murder of George Floyd and many others killed by ongoing racist state-sanctioned violence.
We remain committed to the painfully slow work demanding justice for our own student, David Josiah Lawson. His 2017 murderer has not been brought to justice.
We are disgusted by a recent racist video involving Humboldt students.
We see and hear all Humboldt students, but particularly our Black students, who feel betrayed, sick, and enraged by these and ongoing experiences of racism.
We maintain education as a powerful forum for change. And we recognize the limits of education alone: We must put our knowledge into action.
We must hold individuals and institutions accountable. We must organize to dismantle systems that produce and proliferate structural racism and white supremacy.
We are a faculty of activist-scholars and we are inspired:
- by world-wide anti-racists protests in response to the murder of George Floyd and the everyday state-sanctioned violence against Black communities in this country;
- by the organizing, protest actions, and collective statements released by Departments from our college and our professional associations;
- by the ongoing fierce leadership of our colleagues and students of color who stand on the front lines of the fight against systemic racism;
- by the emails and phone calls from community members, students, and alumni, demanding that we act; and
- by the mobilization and protest of our students, who are living education in action.
Sociology faculty and staff will continue to fight for racial justice in our classrooms, as well in the policies, laws, and practices of our campus and community.
We witness. We act in solidarity.
#Black Lives Matter #Justice for Josiah
The Faculty and Staff of the Department of Sociology
Statements from Cal Poly Humboldt CAHSS and Departments
College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (CAHSS)
Department of Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Native American Studies Statement
Local and National Statements
American Sociological Association
American Association of Geographers
ASC Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice
California Geographical Society
National Women's Studies Association
Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
Sociologists for Women in Society
