DIAT’s Anti-Racist Educational Resource Guide
Dear our UMF Community,
The past few weeks have been an important and difficult time. The recent killings of Black Americans George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery have mobilized much of our community, the country, and the world, to protest police brutality and anti-Black racism. This is an urgent reminder that we have immense work to do towards creating a more just and inclusive UMF community and world. Many of our Black students and community members are grieving, angry, fearful, organizing, protesting in the streets. We are here to support you.
The goal of the Diversity and Inclusion Action Team is to provide space, learning, and resources to create a more inclusive, just and anti-racist UMF community. Right now, we want to encourage a deeper understanding— for all students, staff, faculty and administration— regarding the anti-Black racism and the real and unending struggles that Black people have faced in our country, around the world, and here in our own Farmington community.
DIAT—with the support of UMF students, alumni, staff, faculty, and administrators— has compiled an antiracism educational resource guide. Consider this guide a starter kit to deepen your awareness of systemic anti-Black racism and to learn from Black voices, artists and organizations about the civil rights issues facing us today. As you explore these resources, we encourage you to continue to expand your self-education, and to share those resources and learning with each other. This guide is a living document and we will continue to add to it as our learning and conversation deepens. If you have a resource you’d like to add, please email us and we will include it.
DIAT will be hosting events to support learning and action planning to confront the current events and push our institution toward an anti-racist community. We will share more information through email, social media, and our DIAT website.
We also want to encourage you to reach out for support within our UMF community. You can contact DIAT here. Counseling is available through the Center for Student Development (CSD) Counseling Services by contacting 207-778-7034 and katie.b.fournier@maine.edu. Discrimination and harassment can be reported to Title IX coordinator Hope Shore by contacting 207-778-7188 or emailing hope.shore@maine.edu.
To our Black community members who face injustices every day, you have our support. We see you, hear you, value you, and we stand with you. #BlackLivesMatter
— Diversity and Inclusion Action Team, June 2020