Dear Students and Friends of the CEEC:
We are committed to being an anti-racist organization. The long existent and stark inequalities that minimize, marginalize and endanger the lives and contributions of all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and the systemic behaviors that give cover to the wrongful deaths of so many, have been brought into the forefront by the murders of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and the deaths of so many more due to societal conditions that have worsened the effects of COVID-19 on BIPOC communities.
All of us at the CEEC are working to improve energy and environmental conditions for future generations, but we have neglected to apply this vision to also improving the lives of our BIPOC students, colleagues, friends and neighbors. What we have seen time and time again is that any crisis, be it political, economic, health or environmental has an amplified and outsized negative impact on BIPOC communities. In our work to address energy futures we must make energy and environmental equity for all the ultimate goal.
We are reaching out to you with our commitment to do more, recognizing that the time for words is long past. We look forward to working with all of you as we endeavor to create real change.
In the short term we encourage you to watch two events hosted by Columbia on Thursday June 11 that consider the challenges and opportunities to effect positive change:
- Democracy in the Time of Pandemic and Protest: Nsé Ufot and María Teresa Kumar in Conversation with Olatunde Johnson (video)
- University Life Forum: Black Lives Matter, Protest and Creating Change (video coming soon)
Warm regards,
Jingguang Chen
Dan Esposito
Jeff Fitts
Lauren Marbella
Vijay Modi
Matthias Preindl
Dan Steingart
Alexander Urban
Alan West
Bolun Xu
Yuan Yang