#BlackLivesMatter. Today, I participated in spirit in #ShutDownAcademia, although I put in a full day at my job as a communicator for Cornell’s College of Arts & Sciences. I promote stuff our faculty members write and publish, and this week they have really important things to say. I couldn’t just put it all aside. Among the articles I’ve worked with in the past two days:

Samantha Sheppard, the Mary Armstrong Meduski ’80 Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the Department of Performing and Media Arts, wrote in The Atlantic about how Black filmmakers have used their works to show that the state’s inhumane treatment of black people, not the uprisings that result, is the real chaos.

Alexander Livingston, associate professor of government, wrote in Jacobin Magazine : “Effective nonviolence is about wielding collective action to disrupt the normal workings of society. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this better than most.”

Noliwe Rooks, professor of American Studies, commented in the New York Times on the news that Twitter and Square are making Juneteenth a company holiday.

In a Public Radio International interview, government professor Suzanne Mettler said racism has become a threat to our #democracy: “It’s always there, kind of waiting to be tapped, and sometimes it comes to the surface more than others.” Like an underground spring, racism is there under the surface of our country’s history, and it’s bubbling over this month. It’s an unsettling truth. I agree with her. (And I’m excited that I get to write about her forthcoming book, The Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, in the coming month.)

I meant to take the last two hours today to read about 10 articles I have saved up, including a profile of Ibram X. Kendi in The Undefeated and this remembrance of George Floyd in the New York Times. I also wanted to queue up some films from the Criterion Collection, which is streaming films by black filmmakers free of cost.

My supervisor supported me in this, but my work took me into the evening. That’s okay. Writing, reading, reporting and promoting is an education and a joy. I’ve never been happier to do this. I’ve also never been more determined to make time on a regular basis to learn about racial justice and anti-racism and history, to share what I know, and to take action based on what I learn.

It gave me hope to be part of a day in which instructors, advisers, staff, and students step back—whether to heal or to learn—and focus on the unjust elements of academia.