“If They Come in The Morning…”
In 2020, the threat to us as womxn and femmes of color-and all oppressed people-is arguably the highest we’ve experienced in our collective lifetime. We are being targeted via legal policies, media outlets, and even systems, institutions and individuals whom are expected to represent, serve, protect, and care for us.
This year’s conference theme, “If They Come in The Morning…”, is taken from the inmate communication between two of the most iconic activists of our time, James Baldwin and Angela Davis. Used as a salutation in a letter penned to Davis while incarcerated, Baldwin eloquently calls us all to collective action:
“…if we know, we must fight for your life as though it were our own
-which it is-and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the
gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming
for us that night.”
Building on last year’s theme, it has always been the work of the Ellipsis Institute for Womxn of Color in the Academy to intentionally create space for womxn of color students, staff and faculty as we build relationship across lines of difference in a unified pursuit of advocacy efforts for all womxn, in all roles. As we continue to do so, we know that we must:
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State that #BlackLivesMatter. We have and will continue to center the experiences of those womxn, femmes and gender non-conforming Black folk in all of our work at the Ellipsis Institute
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Realize and acknowledge the deep American past and our supposed place in the reality of the American collective consciousness
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Examine institutional, systemic and electoral politics and their effect on intersectional, oppressed communities
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Actualize our roles as those on the line for liberation by doing our own work to illuminate our continued role and responsibility…to ourselves, and also to one another
Let us hold fast to the words sent to encourage our dear sweet sister,
For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”
#SeizeTheNarrative
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