The times in which we live, do our work and continue to struggle for a shared and inclusive good on campus, and in community, society and the world are clearly becoming more difficult, dangerous and demanding each day. This is especially true in the context of the disruptive, dismantling and punitive attacks by the Trump administration and its allies on the conception and practice of our discipline and on our students’ right to a quality education in a welcoming place and equitable process, and their right to freedom of speech and assembly, and to engage in expressions of dissent and resistance to injustice and oppression. But at the outset, it is important to note that Trump’s and his allies’ ongoing and expanded attack on DEI, Black Studies, Ethnic Studies, and all that challenges their narrow and noxious conception of education and life is part of a larger planned and pursued assault on education as a whole, academic freedom, freedom of speech and assembly, academic autonomy, shared governance and ultimately democracy itself. Indeed, stoking and weaponizing White grievance and sense of uncomfortableness about hearing ugly, but accurate and evidence-based data of examining history and current realities, they have opted to outlaw it and the academic and relation-building programs and policies that seek to end factual and conceptual inaccuracies and eliminate structural and relational inequities. It is an attempt to reverse the forward thrust of history and undo gains made in righteous and relentless struggle for racial and social justice, multicultural education, and policies and programs designed and directed to create the conditions and capacities for a shared and inclusive good in the academy and the country.
Trump’s repeated threats and punishment of colleges and universities throughout the country to force them to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs, policies and practices or lose funding is to extort compliance, not to enhance the quality of education or human relations. These assaults not only tend to undermine, roll back and erase initiatives that serve the educational interests of marginalized and underrepresented students, but also those of all students. For deprived of the enriching presence and participation of diverse students, faculty and staff, the educational project will be denied the varied reality-based representation and intellectual and cultural resources of a diverse country and world. Instead, they will only have a cultural monologue of self-congratulatory narratives posing as a comprehensive curriculum that addresses the diverse realities of the world. Moreover, these disruptive intrusions and attacks deny students the presence and knowledge of a full range of faculty backgrounds, knowledge, skills and perspectives that not only enrich education, but also reflect the diversity and complexities of the world.
The history, culture, intellectual traditions, lived experiences and social struggles of the discipline of Black/Africana Studies directs us ethically and intellectually to resist such moves toward reversal and authoritarianism. The mission of the National Council for Black Studies compels us to engage in a self-conscious and committed practice of cultural grounding, academic excellence and social responsibility. Our commitment to cultural grounding emphasizes our rigorously informed understanding that our culture with its ancient and ongoing insights, practice and achievements are worthy of the most careful and rigorous study and an embodied and educational contribution to diversity and inclusive excellence.
Our commitment to academic excellence is to expand and advance knowledge and educate our students in dignity-affirming, life-enhancing and world-preserving ways using the highest standards of rigorous scholarship and collaborative pedagogy. And our commitment to social responsibility is directed toward using knowledge to address critical social issues and to contribute to African and human good and the well-being of the world. Thus, our commitment to cultural grounding will not allow us to refrain from researching, teaching and writing about the rich diversity we embody and express as both a people and a discipline. We cannot and will not erase ourselves, dismiss or downgrade our discipline and deny our students the unique and distinct history, culture, intellectual traditions, lived experiences and social struggles that define us as an African community of identity and diversity.
Our commitment to academic excellence will not allow us to teach histories devoid of accuracy, honesty and evidence, to deny the presence and practice of racism, classism, sexism and other constraints on human freedom, or to accept the authoritarian allocation of not-to-be questioned narratives, news and evidence-deprived assertions. And this commitment will not allow us to accept or participate in the revision and removal of truth and reality from our teaching, textbooks and discourse, even though it might be deemed and designated as “inconvenient”, “uncomfortable” and “unnecessary” by others. To collaborate in such practices negative to the honest search for and sharing of the true and the real would be to undermine academic integrity, discourage critical thinking and deny and distort the role of education in the ethical development of our students.
Also, our commitment to social responsibility will not allow us to turn away from our activist-scholar tradition, our intellectual and ethical commitment to expand and advance knowledge in the interest of human freedom, justice, equality and other human good. Thus, it will not allow us to refuse, even under threat, to teach our students to cultivate sensibilities of respect, empathetic understanding and appreciation of others and to foster interest in them in pursuing social change, applying their knowledge to address problems and challenges of life and to reimagine and pursue a future rooted in a shared and inclusive good for themselves, others and the world. Indeed, recognizing that Black Studies was born, not only of community organizing and intellectual initiative, but also of student activism, we affirm that their moral and political right to speak freely and demand justice is essential to the health of democracy, the quality of education and their sense of personal and collective responsibility for their communities, societies and the world.
Therefore, in spite of the dangerous, difficult and demanding times that confront us, our task is not to retreat or retrench, but to dare to resist and reaffirm the values and vision of a just and good society and world so central to our discipline and community, while protecting each other, especially the most vulnerable among us, including faculty, students and staff.. We urge our colleagues to hold fast to these values, to maintain and constantly develop their cultural groups, events and ceremonies, such as Black graduation, that reaffirm and support our students and us, and to continue to build with others similarly committed the just and good campus, society and world we all want, deserve and demand.
And we must hold fast to and reaffirm the value of questioning as a central avenue and incentive to generate new knowledge and advance and achieve new and ongoing goals. Indeed, we must continue to pursue questioning as necessary criticism of the erroneous, insufficient and oppressive, but also questioning as wondering about the absent and the possible and about the yet-to-be discovered concerning ourselves, others, society and the world. For this leads not only to generative doubt and ongoing questioning, but also to deeper understanding and continuous development. Also, we must continue to teach history, historical context, deep thinking, and empathetic understanding. and to foster and facilitate conversation about racial and social justice, freedom, and struggles for human good and the well-being of the world and all in it.
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Founded in 1975, the National Council for Black Studies is the leading professional organization for the discipline of Africana/Black Studies and is dedicated to the production and dissemination of knowledge, professional development and training, policy advisement and advocacy for social and racial justice and social change in the interest of African and human good and the well-being of the world.. Our members include scholars, community leaders and students focused on a variety of issues and initiatives related and relevant to the African American and global African community. NCBS is committed to cultural grounding, academic excellence and social responsibility, and to creating and sharing knowledge to address intellectual, ethical and social issues and contribute definitively to imagining and achieving a shared and inclusive good for all in the world.