On Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd Movement

Dear artists, readers, contributors and community members,

We at the Trinity Review have been aware of everything that has unfolded over the last week and a half, and we have been devastated by the events occurring in Canada and the United States, as both individuals and as a team. We are sorry to be releasing a statement so late. The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Regis Korchinski-Paquet and countless other black individuals throughout the long history of systemic oppression in North America were unspeakable tragedies. We stand in solidarity with protesters around the world and with our peers at Trinity College and the University of Toronto who are demanding justice for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. We thank the Trinity community for holding us accountable and we hope that we are able to contribute our part to the conversation.

We recognize that as a very old institution at Trinity, our publications have certainly featured a disproportionate number of elitist contributors. In recent years, the Trinity Review has reached out to artists around the world for literary and artistic submissions, and has created stronger publications year by year as a result of this diversity of voices. It goes without saying that the role of politics in art, and that of art in politics, is blurred and constantly fluctuating. We promote our call for submissions to a variety of multicultural clubs around campus, but we recognize that there is more we can do to lift up the voices that have not been adequately heard, and we commit ourselves to such an endeavour in the years to come.

Our inbox at Facebook, Instagram and by email (trinity.review@gmail.com) will be open for constructive dialogue, and we hope that all of us here at Trinity can learn and grow with each other in this tragic and difficult time.

Below are resources that we found helpful in learning and responding to recent events. Please feel free to explore them as well.

Organizations:

  • Antiracist Research and Policy Center

  • Color of Change

  • Equal Justice Initiative 

  • NAACP

  • RAICES

  • Showing Up for Racial Justice

  • Black Legal Action Center

  • The Bail Project

Books:

  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

  • How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

  • The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

Petitions and Movements