Anti-racist Statement from the Department of Religious Studies

Spring 2021 Updated Statement
As faculty members in a public research university, we recognize our cultural and economic privilege. We are both caught up and complicit in institutions that perpetuate racism, sexism, and hegemony.

In response to the murders of Mr. Rayshard Brooks, Mr. George Floyd, Ms. Breonna Taylor, Mr. Ahmaud Arbery, Mr. Trayvon Martin, Mr. Michael Brown, Mr. Eric Garner, Mr. Rayshard Brooks, Mr. Daunte Wright, Mr. Adam Toledo, and Ms. Ma’Khia Bryant and many others, including members of Atlanta’s Asian community, we stand with colleagues, students, and community members demonstrating against the institutions and structures that perpetuate hate and enable racist violence. As we stand together, we mourn and reflect on our personal and collective responsibilities to be actively anti-racist.

We recognize the great potential our diverse and innovative community has to overturn racist, sexist, and hegemonic structures as we reinvent it in the wake of the crises we now face. We commit to an anti-racist and inclusive environment in our department, programming, and classes. Our commitments include the following:

• We will incorporate anti-racist pedagogical training into our faculty development and GTA teaching practicums;
  • Individual faculty members participated in trainings that focused on anti-racist and accessible teaching through the American Academy of Religion, the Wabash Center, the College of Arts and Sciences, and GSU’s Writing Across the Curriculum program (AY 2020-21).
  • Individual faculty revised course materials to address religion and race through readings and conversations about intersectionality, change, disability, mental health, decolonialism, empire, and racial justice.
• We will revise materials on religion and race in RELS 2001 to incorporate current events and an anti-racist pedagogy;
  • David Bell and the GTAs the religion and race module by incorporating materials on Black Lives Matter, the Civil Rights movement, Black liberation theology, and Womanism (AY 2020-21).
  • David Bell and the GTAs increased the representation of diverse peoples in course media (AY 2020-21).
• We will require that all theory and methods courses include materials written by African-American scholars and other people of color;
  • In RELS 3750, “Theory and Method,” Dr. James Dennis LoRusso devoted the second half of the course entirely to post-modern approaches to the study of religion. Beyond second-wave feminism, the course included sections on race, Womanism, Queer theory, and post-colonial theories of religion and identity. The entire course was framed around thinking about how the social location (gender, race, historical period) of the scholars impacted their theories/methods. (AY 2020-21)
• We will amplify existing resources to help students, faculty, and staff report and respond to micro-aggressions and racism;
  • Toward this end, in 2021-22 we commit to including an anti-racist statement on course syllabi starting Fall 2021; and
  • We commit in 2021-22 to engaging with College and University administrators to develop more resources around responding to micro-aggressions and racism.
• We will develop a faculty mentoring program that acknowledges the obstacles faculty of color encounter because of racism, works to undo those structures, and provides specific support for faculty of color.
  • As part of this work, in 2021-22 we commit as faculty to develop the skills necessary to recognize micro-aggressions and racism as they happen in classrooms or on campus and to respond to them directly without waiting for students or colleagues of color to report incidents to us.

Spring 2020 Statement

As faculty members in a public research university, we recognize our cultural and economic privilege. We are both caught up and complicit in institutions that perpetuate racism, sexism, and hegemony.

In response to the murders of Mr. Rayshard Brooks, Mr. George Floyd, Ms. Breonna Taylor, Mr. Ahmaud Arbery, Mr. Trayvon Martin, Mr. Michael Brown, Mr. Eric Garner, and many others, we stand with colleagues, students, and community members demonstrating against the institutions and structures that perpetuate hate and enable racist violence. As we stand together, we mourn and reflect on our personal and collective responsibilities to be actively anti-racist.

We recognize the great potential our diverse and innovative community has to overturn racist, sexist, and hegemonic structures as we reinvent it in the wake of the crises we now face. We commit to an anti-racist and inclusive environment in our department, programming, and classes. Our commitments include the following:

• We will incorporate anti-racist pedagogical training into our faculty development and GTA teaching practicums;
• We will revise materials on religion and race in RELS 2001 to incorporate current events and an anti-racist pedagogy;
• We will require that all theory and methods courses include materials written by African-American scholars and other people of color;
• We will amplify existing resources to help students, faculty, and staff report and respond to micro-aggressions and racism; and
• We will develop a faculty mentoring program that acknowledges the obstacles faculty of color encounter because of racism, works to undo those structures, and provides specific support for faculty of color.