From the Desk of the President

Celebrating Black History Month provides me with reminders of the key roles, contributions, and sacrifices of African Americans over the years and offers a visibility to the legacies being made, today, by so many of our HACC colleagues and the students we serve. Therefore, this month affords me an opportunity to:

1. Celebrate the achievements of my Black friends, colleagues and students

2. Keep learning and growing by reading and doing research to include Peggy McIntosh’s classic, “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” or Layla Saad’s “Me and White Supremacy” workbook, a 28-day guide I am currently using to examine myself. You can even read books from a list compiled by our library colleagues

3. Determine ways to renew my resolve at breaking down vestiges of white supremacy, especially, when it shows up at work and/or at home 

4. Share my privilege, network and resources with my Black colleagues and students who may lack the networks that White Americans typically have. I also need to reach out to my Black colleagues to share in their networks too

5. Support organizations and initiatives in our communities that work with people with multiple marginalized identities

6. Strive to be an accomplice by using my privilege to challenge existing conditions that oppress others. As an accomplice, I need to tackle racial injustices on an institutional level

7. Recognize Black creators of poetry, writing, painting, dance and other arts and thank them for sharing their journeys and truths

8. Shop at Black-owned businesses

9. Get to know a Black colleague by inviting him/her to a meal or for a cup of coffee

10. participate in Black Heritage Month events being offered by the Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Belonging

As I strive to be antiracist by doing my own reading and research, using my privilege to challenge systems and making intentional decisions to fight injustice, I want to believe having this month (and the other 11 months) to focus my efforts in these ways is critical and life-changing.

Will you join me on this journey? 

As Langston Hughes wrote, “Art is not escape, but a way of finding order in chaos, a way of confronting life.” Therefore, “Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people – the beauty within themselves.”