CAST Commitments, in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter

The interdisciplinary program in Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation (CAST) condemns white supremacy, anti-Black violence, police brutality, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the many additional everyday violences against Black people through which individuals, groups, and institutions in the United States perpetuate the legacy of slavery and benefit from doing so.

We commit to work toward repairing the racial, gender, economic, and environmental injustices, health disparities, and erasure of heritage that continue to situate Black lives as less valuable and more disposable than white lives.

Black lives matter. Black flourishing matters.

We renew our commitment to centering and advancing the knowledges, creativity, languages, and vision of our Black students and colleagues.

We renew our commitment to fostering antiracist, decolonizing, Indigenous, and intersectional perspectives and values in our teaching and learning. We commit to exploring our own biases, as teachers and researchers, and encourage our students to join us in this vulnerability. We will continue to offer trainings and resources to aid our colleagues in the decolonization of their teaching practice. We will also continue to develop core CAST electives analyzing structural inequalities and oppression and case studies of attempts to transform these. We will reflect on our roles as artists, researchers, and change agents in combating forms of oppression, including violent policing. We will create forums for the discussion of intersectionality through our events, exhibitions, design labs, and academic work. We will host student-centered events and art installations in the 2020-21 academic year that actively tackle issues of racism and internalized bias and center the creativity and perspectives of Black students.

We acknowledge that as researchers, artists, and change agents we stand on the traditional land of the
Massa-adchu-es-et (Massachusett). 

We commit to using our privileges and resources as a predominantly white program, one that has itself benefited from a legacy of white supremacy, to create space for our students and colleagues with fewer privileges to do their own work, ask their own questions, and advance their own conclusions.

We ask our white colleagues and students to reflect on their privileges and inherent biases, and to use their privilege and resources to support, listen to, and amplify the leadership, knowledge, and demands of their Black, brown, and Indigenous peers. We commit to providing opportunities for our Black, brown, and Indigenous peers, students, and colleagues to create beauty and joy.

We celebrate the courage, resistance, creativity, wisdom, and hope of our students and colleagues who, protesting and struggling against white supremacy and racist violence, at the same time affirm that Black, brown, and Indigenous voices are vital.

We understand these statements as governing how we, as instructors and learners, develop and teach CAST-designated courses and how we review courses for cross-listing with CAST.

We will utilize our time together to hold each other to these commitments and ensure accountability.

Anna Cass, Undergraduate Departmental Representative
Aviva Davis, Undergraduate Departmental Representative
Thomas A. King, Co-chair
Toni Shapiro-Phim, Co-chair
[Also signed by the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts: Cynthia Cohen, Director; Toni Shapiro-Phim, Assistant Director]

All statements, including this one, are works in progress that must be further developed in action. Affiliated CAST faculty and staff, along with Peacebuilding and the Arts, will meet to discuss and build on this statement as possible this semester and across the academic year.
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Recommended resources:

Movement for Black Lives Policy Demands (please scroll down to list of demands)

Joint letter from Diverse Brandeis Scholars and Black Graduate Student Association

Philip V. McHarris and Thenjiwe McHarris, “No More Money for the Police. Redirect it to emergency response programs that don’t kill black people” (Opinion), The New York Times (May 30, 2020)

Ashanté Reese and SA Smythe, Resources for learning about police and prison abolition (Google doc) 

Campaign Zero’s Policy Solutions for ending police violence 

Reclaim the Block’s Resources and Downloads page 

26 Ways to Be in the Struggle Beyond the Streets (2014)

AYNI Institute’s Resources for Building Emotional Resilience 

Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein, Anti-racism resources for white people (May 2020, Google doc) 

Take Project Implicit’s test for implicit bias. (project implicit )

Activist Calendar (Boston, MA) (Facebook) 

Violence in Boston 

The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention Statement on George Floyd, Racism, and Structural Violence 

WBUR’s The ARTery, “5 Podcasts to Listen to if You Really Want to Know About Race in America” 

Race Forward’s video series, “What is Systemic Racism?” 

"Bryan Stevenson on the Frustration Behind the George Floyd Protests" 

Book: White Fragility by Robin Di'Angelo 

Student Experiences

Haia R'nana Bchiri '20 - Haia's CAST experience culminated with a book of poetry and recipes titled "Comfort: Food," and she will be continuing to engage with the values of CAST as she pursues her PhD in Theatre at UC San Diego.

Rasheed Peters '20 - The CAST minor helped Rasheed tell the stories of BIPOC in the US and from around the world who were often overlooked. Rasheed produced "At the Heart of it All," a film reflecting on his work as a storyteller, for his capstone project.

Zoë Rose '20 - Zoë's CAST experience culminated in her production and performance of the one-woman show, "Zoë Rose Spills Her Guts.”

Read more about Haia, Rasheed, and Zoë.