Dear students, staff, and faculty,
We would like to express our grief and anger at the anti-Asian, xenophobic, and misogynistic hate crimes that were committed in Atlanta, Georgia on 16 March 2021. We particularly grieve for the families of Delaina Ashley Yuan, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Julie Park, Hyeon Jeong Park, Paul Andre Michels, and the two victims whose names have not yet been released to the public. This attack has served as the culmination of increasing anti-Asian racism in the wake of the pandemic. We want to extend our compassion toward the Asian members of the Department of English. We encourage you to do the same: reach out to your friends and colleagues and support fellow members of our community.
We – Graham, Walter, Jenna, and Connor – are here for you. If there’s anything you need right now, please reach out, and we will do everything we can to support you.
Please spend some time with the educational resources and consider contributing to the donation funds at the following link: https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/. While these resources are a starting point, they are not exhaustive. Please feel free to share any additional resources with us, which we will upload to the Graduate English Association’s growing Equity Resources page.
Sincerely,
Graham Hassell, Walter Villanueva, Jenna McKellips, and Connor Bennett
Butterfly Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network
Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice
Dear GEA Membership,
As your incoming GEA exec, we would like to express our solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and state that we are vehemently opposed to all forms of racism, white supremacy, and settler nationalism. Although none of us on the exec are Black or Indigenous, we support and want to uplift the voices of those that belong to these communities. We apologize for the delay in releasing a statement and will continue to confront how we are complicit in the oppression of BIPOC. On our end, we are working to establish an Equity and Diversity Committee within the GEA that will address concerns about race (and also gender, sexuality, mental health, and disability) and advocate for change at the department level. We will be holding a meeting this summer to begin the process of formalizing this committee in our constitution and hope to collaborate with the wider GEA membership on what work the EDC can do going forward.
Below we are also sharing a list of resources, donation funds, and anti-racist reading material. We will continue to update this list throughout the year.
Sincerely,
Graham, Walter, Jenna, and Connor
Please see the GEA’s “Crowdsourced List of Literature and Scholarship by BIPOC Authors”
Donation funds:
Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
Justice for Breonna Taylor Fund
Justice for Regis Korchinski-Paquet Fund
List of bail and legal funds organized by city
Groups:
UofT Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Office
See also this list of resources for Black graduate students compiled by UTGSU
Mental Health Resources (GradMinds)
Reading list (non-comprehensive):
-
21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality by Bob Joseph
-
How to be Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
-
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla Saad
-
Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present by Robyn Maynard
-
The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power by Desmond Cole
-
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
-
They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life, and Growing Up by Eternity Martis
-
When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
-
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum
-
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
-
Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis
See also this anti-Black racism reading list compiled by UofT Libraries.
To suggest additional resources, please contact the sitting Equity Representative (walter.villanueva@mail.utoronto.ca) and/or any member of the current GEA Exec (gea.uoft@gmail.com). Alternatively, please feel free to get in touch with us individually. Our contact information may be found here: http://www.english.utoronto.ca/grad/gea.htm.