Since the beginning of 2020, we have seen a social turmoil that has not been broadly expressed in at least a generation, marked by protests sparked by the all-too-common spectacle of a black man’s unjust death. George Floyd’s killing is a recent — but by no means even the latest — iteration of America’s gruesome heritage of racist violence. This heritage scaffolds the length of our history, its shadow dimming us and our institutions. As Ibram X. Kendi teaches us, indeed as he said at last year’s Buffalo Humanities Festival (video below), we at institutions all have influence on the […]
