Harmful Impacts of Racism

This week’s senseless shootings in Atlanta have once again brought the issues of hate crimes and racism to national attention. Regardless of the claimed motivation of the shooter, the victims were not randomly targeted, with the majority being women of Chinese or Korean ancestry. Nationally, there has been a large increase in hostile speech, expressed bigotry, and hate crimes targeted against people of east Asian ancestry, including people who might look like they are of east Asian ancestry.

Some of this is clearly tied to scapegoating over the COVID pandemic, but the negative impacts can be felt more broadly. All such harmful acts can provoke concern or fear among those who feel they are being targeted or could be targeted, and MSU at all levels stands in support of ALL members of our Spartan community. All of you are valued members of our community, and it is important that all of us treat each other accordingly.

In addition, it is important to recognize that some of our fellow Spartans may be affected by a harmful outside environment beyond our campus.  We can’t control what happens outside our campus, but we can support and value all of our faculty, staff, students, and others in the MSU community.

I echo President Stanley’s message: “We urge everyone to do their part to combat racism and discrimination in all its forms and support one another so that we may build a campus community we are all proud of. Hate has no place at MSU.”

President Stanley’s full message is athttps://president.msu.edu/communications/messages-statements/2020_statements/2021-03-17-supporting-apida-and-asian-communities.html.

Dr. Jeffrey Freymueller
EES Interim Department Chair