Abstract
The rise of DEI within U.S. universities has not made it easier to analyze or speak about
genocidal violence erupting within our world. Following an academic year when Stony
Brook University’s DEI office functioned as a truncheon wielded against students
protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, this essay delves into the example of
dissident poet and former Stony Brook University faculty member June Jordan, who
provides a critical example of Palestinian solidarity and principled practice from within
academia. June Jordan’s Stony Brook years provide a vital example for students,
faculty, and staff speaking about Palestinian freedom and global human rights on American college campuses.
References
Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, Salim Yusuf; “Counting the dead in Gaza:difficult but essential” The Lancet, July 5, 2024. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext#articleInformation
Siriam Shamasunder, “June Jordan’s Legacy of Solidarity and Love Remains Relevant,” Yes! Magazine, February 13, 2023, https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2023/02/13/june-jordan-legacy.
June Jordan, On Call: Political Essays, (South End Press: Boston, MA) 1985
Stony Brook Africana Studies Video Archive
Abena Ampofoa Asare, “The Silencing of Fred Dube,” The Boston Review, January 18, 2024. https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-fred-dube-affair/
Valerie Kinloch, June Jordan: Her Life and Letters (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006)
Marina Magloire, “Moving Towards Life,” Los Angeles Review of Books, 8/7/24. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/moving-towards-life/
Erica R. Edwards, The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of US Empire, (New York: NYU Press, 2021)
June Jordan, Living Room: New Poems by June Jordan, 1985
June Jordan,Some of Us Did Not Die, (New York: Civitas Books, 2002)
Doreen St. Felix, “Still Moving” Lux, 9, Winter 2023, https://lux-magazine.com/article/june-jordan/
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