Dear fellow scholars and community members,
We write this statement of solidarity, denouncing the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and the ongoing oppression of Black Americans.
D-Lab mourns with millions across the country over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many other Black people killed at the hands of police. We denounce these horrendous events that are indicative of the systemic racism that is built into the fabric of our society and government. We call for the demilitarization of institutions of higher learning and defunding traditional policing. We support all those who are calling attention to and fighting against these injustices. We decry efforts to suppress the right to speak and protest and we seek to hear Black voices.
D-Lab is committed to justice, inclusion, and equity. Our values do not start nor end in the classroom. Equity means that we need to work towards restitution and compensation for a legacy of slavery, abuse, and violence. We are also committed to leveraging our academic research to promote these values. This includes our work on measuring hate speech. With our work, we are actively creating knowledge and tools to protect marginalized communities, so that we can preserve bedrock democratic values such as freedom of speech, political speech, and counterspeech.
Sincerely,
The D-Lab Community