https://lasocialscience.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Christopher-Lebron-photo.jpg960953Assistant Editorhttps://lasocialscience.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lass_logo-helvetica-281x300-1.jpgAssistant Editor2020-11-16 19:17:132020-11-16 19:17:13“Black Lives Matter – Past, Present, and Beyond” Lecture Series Featuring Dr. Christopher Lebron
UCLA Anthropology alumnus and Professor Robert B. Lemelson has made a generous gift to establish The Study of Black Life and Racial Inequality Program Fund that will provide critical support for graduate and undergraduate students who share a commitment to the study of Black Life and Racial Inequality in Anthropology.
As part of Anthropology’s commitment to ensure ongoing financial support for transformative positive social change, as well as provide much-needed material support for students engaged with these issues, Professor Lemelson’s gift will pave the way for more sustainable future support from alumni and friends who share Anthropology’s vision of impactful research and social justice.
To build on this vision, the Department of Anthropology is excited to support a student-initiated group focused on academic engagement, mentorship, and the professional development of Black graduate students in Anthropology. The Department will also offer a new mentoring course for diverse undergraduates led by the student group to be inaugurated in the Winter of 2021. Undergraduates in the course who are also interested in pursuing independent research will be encouraged to apply to the Department’s prestigious undergraduate Lemelson Anthropological Honors Program to further develop their research and professional careers.
The Department of Anthropology is deeply grateful to Professor Lemelson for his support of this vision and his generous gift, which will ensure the program’s success in years to come.
We invite the community to join us in this important initiative to support the study of Black Life and racial inequality by making an online gift HERE. If you are interested in making a gift by check, please contact Lisa Mohan at lmohan@support.ucla.edu. We appreciate your support of this important program.
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UCLA Professor Stephen Acabado recently co-authored an essay for INQUIRER.net that discusses how monuments in the Philippines “glorify both our fight for self-determination and the contributions of our colonial overlords.” The authors credit the #BlackLivesMatter movement for this renewed investigation into monuments and the histories they represent, as they urge the reader to see monuments as elevations of history.
A pre-war photo of the Plaza Quince Martires in Naga City. The monument honors the 15 martyrs of Bicol who were executed by the Spanish in 1897 for rebellion. (Photo: Savage Mind: Arts, Books, Cinema)
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For the newly launched magazine, NOEMA, Dr. Safiya Noble wrote an essay that calls out the titans of technology, and challenges us all to look at the societal needs of this pivotal moment. As calls for abolition and racial justice echo from coast to coast, Dr. Noble informs us how “Big Tech is implicated in displacing high-quality knowledge institutions–newsrooms, libraries, schools, and universities–by destabilizing funding through tax evasion, actively eroding the public goods we need to flourish.” She also writes:
“We need new paradigms, not more new tech. We need fair and equitable implementations of public policy that bolster our collective good. We need to center the most vulnerable among us–the working poor and the disabled, those who live under racial and religious tyranny, the discriminated against and the oppressed. We need to house people and provide health, employment, creative arts, and educational resources. We need to close the intersectional racial wealth gap.”
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Demonstrators march through the streets of Hollywood, California, on June 2, 2020, to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. – Anti-racism protests have put several US cities under curfew to suppress rioting, following the death of George Floyd. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
In this important piece featured in the Los Angeles Times, UCLA’s Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter, Scott Waugh Endowed Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences, professor of sociology, and chair of the department of African American Studies, presents a conversation he recently had with some of the nation’s foremost writers on Los Angeles to discuss how the city’s racial history informs the present moment and the continued fight against racism and injustice.
Dr. Hunter writes:
“Black people’s lives have remained vulnerable and unprotected by the very government that abolished the institution of slavery. As the planter class took its last sips of power and blood, they managed to bequeath us a century and a half of debt and devastation. Racism is their lasting hex on a country that would dare to try and outlive them, an institutionally effective death spell killing black people every day.”
To read the full article, “How Does L.A.’s Racial Past Resonate Now? #Blacklivesmatter’s Originator and 5 Writers Discuss,” click HERE.
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hortly before midnight on Saturday, 37 campus leaders, including the presidents of the undergraduate and graduate student associations, joined together to send a message to the UCLA community expressing their collective anger, sadness and solidarity.”
In addition, UCLA Dean of Social Sciences Darnell Hunt has recently been quoted when providing his expert insight on the nationwide protests against racism and injustice by several media outlets. Check out those articles below the statement.
To the Campus Community:
Across the country, people are horrified by the recent killings of three African Americans: Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. We share that outrage. And these are only a few of the most recent deaths to cause particular anguish amongst those who for too long have endured cruelty after cruelty, indignity after indignity.
What stood out about the killing of George Floyd — more than its senselessness, more than its brutality – was its casualness. What was so chilling was the relaxed demeanor of a police officer — sworn to protect and to serve — his hands calmly in his pockets, kneeling on the neck of a fellow human being, indifferent to his cries of pain and the fear for his life. Equally harrowing was his three fellow officers who stood there and did not recognize the need to intervene in a life or death situation. All these behaviors reflected the utter dehumanization of Black life.
We must never let that indifference to human suffering become our own. We must never deaden our hearts to the pain of others. Our fundamental values demand that we care.
At UCLA, we believe deeply that equity, respect and justice are central to the character of our institution, to the health of our democracy and to the well-being of our world. Still, we recognize that UCLA also can and must do better. As campus leaders, we recommit ourselves to ensuring that our policies and actions value the lives, safety and dignity of every Bruin.
We have begun the process of coordinating virtual reflection spaces for departments and units, where we can come together to try and process what has happened. With assistance from the Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the university’s Equity Advisors, we are also trying to share ways we can honestly and humbly acknowledge the pain and search for solutions. This includes working with student government leaders to understand and address the needs of our students. Our efforts will be updated on the Resources for Racial Trauma web page as we push forward to deeper understanding and genuine change.
We conclude by stating unequivocally that Black lives DO matter. They matter at UCLA. They matter in Minnesota. They matter everywhere.
In solidarity,
Gene D. Block Chancellor
Emily A. Carter Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
Michael Meranze Chair, Academic Senate
Michael J. Beck Administrative Vice Chancellor
Gregg Goldman Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer
Monroe Gorden, Jr. Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Jerry Kang Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Michael S. Levine Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel
John Mazziotta Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences CEO, UCLA Health
Louise C. Nelson Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs
Mary Osako Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications
Rhea Turteltaub Vice Chancellor for External Affairs
Roger Wakimoto Vice Chancellor for Research
Yolanda J. Gorman Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and Chief of Staff
Dan Guerrero The Alice and Nahum Lainer Family Director of Athletics
Antonio E. Bernardo Dean, Anderson School of Management
Ronald S. Brookmeyer Dean, Fielding School of Public Health
Eric Bullard Dean, Continuing Education and UCLA Extension
Miguel A. García-Garibay Dean, Division of Physical Sciences
Robin L. Garrell Vice Provost, Graduate Education Dean, Graduate Division
Darnell M. Hunt Dean, Division of Social Sciences
Brian Kite Interim Dean, School of Theater, Film and Television
Paul H. Krebsbach Dean, School of Dentistry
Kelsey Martin Dean, David Geffen School of Medicine
Jennifer L. Mnookin Dean, School of Law
Jayathi Y. Murthy Dean, Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
Linda Sarna Dean, School of Nursing
Gary M. Segura Dean, Luskin School of Public Affairs
David Schaberg Dean, Division of Humanities
Victoria Sork Dean, Division of Life Sciences
Brett Steele Dean, School of the Arts and Architecture
Eileen Strempel Dean, The Herb Alpert School of Music
Marcelo Suárez-Orozco Dean, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
Pat Turner Senior Dean, College Dean and Vice Provost, Undergraduate Education
Tony Lee Chief of UCLA Police Department
Naomi Riley President, Undergraduate Students Association
Jean Paul Santos President, Graduate Students Association
Dean Darnell Hunt was interviewed in the following articles/podcasts (click links):
https://lasocialscience.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/large_8YNNp6UMvy8t-yc08e1IFQcuK6O9gfTUKtK1kmrGV8o.jpg4351008Contributorhttps://lasocialscience.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lass_logo-helvetica-281x300-1.jpgContributor2020-06-01 20:01:292020-06-05 18:47:15UCLA Leadership Releases Statement in Support of Black Lives Matter and Provides Expertise in Protest Coverage
UCLA Anthropology alumnus and Professor 
