The fact that people are individually tasked with unlearning their racism and are educating themselves on white privilege reveals that our academic institutions have failed us.  The lack of education provided by institutions such as Trinity on Black history is greatly responsible for the misinformed discourse concerning the socio-political treatment of Black people. Therefore, we are calling on Trinity to follow University College Dublin in adopting a university-level Black Studies Module. This would be the second in Ireland’s history. The first step in being actively anti-racist is education. The first place to start is your community. Therefore it is the responsibility of the Trinity community to demand this education. 

The societal developments involving the Black Lives Matter movement make the study of Black History, and Critical Race Theory (CRT) crucial. Black Studies more broadly is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to studying and understanding the experiences of African people and African-descended people across the Diaspora.

An understanding of what shaped the contemporary Black identity is necessary to ensure that current socio-political developments remain informed, considerate, and effective. Not only would a Black Studies module in Trinity include relevant historical information that would provide insight into the Black identity; the method of examining Black history would promote a more empathetic, academic approach to the discourse of current racial issues.

 We demand: 

1. That Trinity offers a  Black Studies Module as a Trinity Elective so students from all  disciplines and courses can take the module. 
2. That Trinity effectively advertises and promotes the module so that all student know it is available to them-- as well an important and noteworthy area of study 
   After the 2020/21 academic year, the module will be incorporated into standard Humanities/Social Sciences Curricula, as well as remain available as an elective.
3. The class is taught by a black Professor: You can’t discuss these issues in a vacuum of whiteness, that would defeat its purpose.
   1. Dr. Ebun Joseph has already developed the nation’s first Black Studies Module at UCD. She has already been vetted and hired at Trinity, teaching Race, Ethnicity and Identity at the undergraduate level and Race and Gender on the MPhil in Race, Ethnicity and Conflict. She has a M.Ed. in Adult Guidance and earned her PhD in Equality studies at the UCD School of Social Justice. If she is unable to be hired, she is qualified to recommend another module coordinator of the same caliber. 
      For a lunchtime discussion on Black Studies and its importance, including testimonials from Dr. Joseph’s past students. Free online Friday June 12, 1-2pm Dublin Time
   2. 
      Click here for an article outlining her experience starting the module, its necessity, and further information on Black Studies and Critical Race Theory.
   3. Click here for course content and syllabus

***Trinity Provost Patrick Prendergast has recently acknowledged that Trinity as an institution needs to do more for racial justice and equality, but his plan of action is not enough. We require direct implementation in our classrooms with our students.***

We know that the oppression of Black history is central to our current understanding of history and its structuring of contemporary life.  For a university to neglect to teach Black history insults the values that structure the study of history itself.  To omit including a Black Studies module is harmful to the well-rounded education Trinity is said to provide, as well as the perspective of the students the institution is responsible for influencing.  To neglect including a Black Studies module will only perpetuate ignorance on what racism is and what privilege is.  The oppression perpetuated by such ignorance is why people all over the world are independently educating themselves on Black history, and the contemporary Black identity.  This self-education should not be just individualized, but should be structured and introduced by academic institutions. That is their purpose.  The lack of understanding of the character of privilege and racism is ignorance that our academic institution has a responsibility to help fix.

The class will enrich the knowledge and experience of the whole student body outside of a previous historiography which dictates the study of Africa or black people only in relation to their enslavement or subjugation. Through teaching Black Studies, educational institutions can help those of the Black Diaspora find new perspectives on their identity, as well as develop new levels of understanding for non-black people. According to Dr. Ebun Joseph, creator of Ireland’s first Black Studies module, the counter-stories “allow us to see how the world looks from behind someone else’s spectacles. They challenge us to wipe off our own lenses and ask, ‘Could I have been overlooking something all along?’” 

With the reputation Trinity carries, and its influence as an institution, it is its duty to ensure its students receive the fullest education.  As for the school of Humanities and Social Sciences, it would be against the principles of the school itself to continue to lack a module on Black Studies.  The study of history is focused on understanding ‘why’ events occur and prides itself on the inclusion of the perspectives that deepen its ability to do so.

Informed discourse results in effective actions.  

Help us break the cycle we are doomed to repeat if our education system stays the same. For the sake of studying history and using the information it provides to make our solutions modern, sign our petition to include Black Studies and Critical Race Theory as a module offered by Trinity.  

If you have posted to your instagram story, broken your feed with a blackout and a hashtag, this is your opportunity to move from the performative activism to real, institutional change.

Click here to go to our facebook page for more information on Black Studies, Critical Race Theory, or updates on the campaign.