Dear Bucknell University:

This Black History Month, you can keep your empty platitudes, symbolic media posts, and the random sprinkling of Rosa Parks, and Barack Obama, and Edward Brawley into your class discussions, homework assignments, or dormitory bulletin boards. If you really want to make use of this month – the shortest month of the year, mind you – take the steps to re-evaluate your relationship with, and to, anti-blackness. Implore President Bravman to stop tokenizing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s 1958 visit to campus during every convocation ceremony, and tell the rest of administration that making your Chief of Public Safety Black will not, does not, and cannot negate the violence, brutalization, and terror policing is meant to inflict on Black bodies. Mind you, Bucknell would know this if it provided the Critical Black Studies Department the funding it needs to hire more professors. This Black History Month, do us the favor of supporting Black students beyond watching us for entertainment at Black Arts Fest, inviting us to speak at meaningless panels, posting an MLK quote on your Instagram story, and attending our parties when we’re not welcomed at yours. Stop saying that we all have a responsibility to do ‘the work’, Black Bucknellians have done our part…now do yours. If you truly, truly want to honor Black History Month, read a book. Literally.

Sincerely,
2022-2023 BSU Executive Board