UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Creating a place for advocacy was the focus of the “Reflections on Organizing and Power: Anti-Black Police Brutality and the Popular Uprisings” Zoom symposium held on Sept. 18.
Nearly 300 Penn State students, faculty and staff from the University's campuses across the commonwealth attended the event hosted by the Penn State Consortium for Social Movements and Education and the Africana Research Center and co-sponsored by an additional 16 colleges, centers, programs and networks at Penn State in response to a national call for universities to commit resources to combat institutionalized racism on campuses. Speakers included organizers from across the country, including Minneapolis, Philadelphia and State College.
Jeremy Adams, doctoral candidate in philosophy and African American and diaspora studies at Penn State, said the virtual symposium was an imperative for the current moment and opened discussion about institutional racism amongst students and across the University.
“People’s lives are at stake. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, people have had to sit idle and digest the news of multiple killings of Black people — whether they be men, women, trans or non-binary folks. This virtual symposium offered space for people to ‘do the work’ to address these acts of violence by furthering their understanding of the issues and gaining skills to transform our society,” Adams said. “One of the main focuses for the symposium was to provide a structural analysis that can help Black students in the Penn State community make sense of their experiences so that they can begin to counteract these symptoms. and as a result begin to counteract the systems, whether through political advocacy, organizing, promoting anti-racism and diversity initiatives or merely processing the revolutionary politics and impact the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.”