On October 21, 2020 we celebrated Civil Discourse and Social Change’s Tenth Anniversary. To view a recording of the event please click below:
CDSC stands in solidarity and grieves with our Black students, friends, colleagues, family and loved ones over the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McCade and too many others. We are angry that we must state what should be obvious and clear: that Black Lives Matter. As members of a social justice initiative founded on principles of non-violence and social change, we decry the systems of oppression that upholds militarized white supremacy and normalize Black death. We recognize the interlinked fates of marginalized communities who have been made vulnerable to the multiple crises in health care, in employment, in housing, in environmental precarity, in colonialization, and in detention and deportation. Thus, we call for an end to these forms of oppression and for solidarity in the ongoing struggle to remake a society based in radical love.
To fight against anti-Black violence CDSC is committed to education towards widespread social change and the dismantling of systemic oppression. In light of ongoing crises against Black lives we also call upon CSUN to commit to more funds to support Africana Studies and other Ethnic Studies departments who do the vital work of supporting CSUN’s students and faculty of color. Finally, we support the protestors and refuse the narratives that are emerging that seek to invalidate their fight for justice. Now more than ever we affirm our commitment to dismantling the logics of anti-Blackness that uphold our institutions, and to envisioning and building just communities and institutions.
CDSC is thrilled to announce that we are the 2020-2021 recipient of a $100,000.00 grant from the CA Civil Liberties Public Education Program (funded by the California State Library)!
The CA Civil Liberties program aims to increase public awareness about the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II but more broadly focuses on projects that examine the causes of civil rights violations and civil liberties injustices based on national origin, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
The topic of our funded project is: "World Remaking: Intergenerational Activism and Transformative Justice" and will explore 1) the contemporary intergenerational activism and art of Japanese Americans that uses the incarceration experience to mobilize across racial and ethnic lines and practice Third World solidarity; and 2) contemporary social justice and civil liberties issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities e.g. around detention and deportation, gentrification, and now hopefully vulnerability to the pandemic. Programming for next year will focus on storytelling, performance, and public dialogue between different generations of Asian Pacific Islander and other racialized communities that focus on political mobilization, collective healing, and transformative justice.
CDSC is proud to support the struggle against the Executive Orders on the CSUN campus. We ask that you please watch the following student-made video for more information:
Reverend James Lawson has been working with the CDSC initiative at CSUN since 2010.