On Monday, June 8, 2020, the Association for Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine leadership released a statement on anti-black racism and the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and David McAtee, and others.
In the statement, we wrote the following:
As rhetoricians of science, technology, and medicine, it is our ethical responsibility to acknowledge and reckon with the injustices central to the topics we study. And it is our responsibility to critique and resist the use of science, technology, and medicine as tools for the oppression of Black, Brown, and Indigenous People. We can and should use the rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine to call out and address institutional racism and to amplify and support those who are already doing that work, from #BlackInSTEM advocates to anti-surveillance community groups to reproductive justice activists and beyond.
ARSTM is organizationally enmeshed in these systems and thus remains complicit, even while working to dismantle these often invisible structures that naturalize anti-Black oppression and violence. As Ibram X. Kendi writes, “there is no neutrality in the racism struggle. The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘anti-racist” (2019, p. 9). We commit to making anti-racist change within our own organization.
To enact our commitment to making anti-racist change, we will be taking the following specific material actions. To hold ourselves accountable and to enable ARSTM stakeholders to hold us and each other accountable, we have included one or more specific deadlines for each action.
1. Challenge our members to begin or redouble efforts to learn and highlight the histories of rhetoric of science, technology, and medicine’s use and abuse in service of racism, especially anti-Black racism. We call on ourselves and our members to learn about racism, anti-Blackness, and the connections of both to our areas of study. We call on ourselves and our members to use the reading list we are sharing, the bibliography of anti-racist RSTM scholarship we are developing, and our own skills and resources as researchers to self-educate, so that we can knowledgeably build anti-racist practices into our research methods, our pedagogy, and our service to our communities.
Deadline: While this is ongoing work with no final deadline, ARSTM’s ARSTM@NCA pre conference and sponsored NCA panels in November 2020 will provide an opportunity to engage with each other about these issues and to hold each other accountable for addressing them in our research and in the ways we show up in these spaces.
2. Center the voices, needs, and scholarly accomplishments of underrepresented scholars. ARSTM commits to doing so by:
a. Actively supporting and recruiting underrepresented, and especially Black, scholars to continue participating in ARSTM events and standing for ARSTM leadership positions. Anecdotally, ARSTM has historically been a primarily white organization. It is our responsibility to create anti-racist change that will make the organization welcoming for underrepresented, and especially Black, scholars, and also actively supportive of their continued engagement and contributions through mentoring and/or other support structures. This work will require individual and organizational efforts to identify and address ways that we have been or continue to be racist or otherwise exclusionary. We will need to consider how to identify and address issues without singling out or demanding labor from underrepresented members. Possible ways forward include adding duties, either to an existing or a new officer position, that include surveying, aggregating, and reporting on ARSTM climate; calling on conference panel proposals to include diverse representation; and highlighting anti-racist work scholarship by ARSTM members. We can follow the lead of other organizations which have been doing this work, such as the National Communication Association’s Environmental Communication Division.
Deadline: While this is ongoing work with no final deadline, ARSTM’s 2020 summer leadership elections will be the first structural opportunity to implement this. We will develop a proposal describing sustainable processes to do this work and hold ourselves accountable for it by our annual business meeting at the National Communication Association conference in November 2020.
b. Developing an initial bibliography of work on racism and anti-racist work in and related to RSTM and making this bibliography permanently and publicly available on the ARSTM website. This bibliography will include links to and citations for at least three kinds of work: 1) existing reading lists, many compiled by Black activists and scholars, on anti-racism, critical race theory, and Black activism; 2) multidisciplinary scholarship on race and racism in science, technology, and medicine; and 3) RSTM scholarship about racism and intersectional oppressions and by underrepresented scholars.
Deadline: ARSTM leadership will compile this initial bibliography and circulate it via social media, listserv, and website by Wednesday, June 10.
Update (6/10/2020): The RSTM and RSTM-Related Scholarship on Race and Anti-Racism bibliography is available via the ARSTM website and has been circulated via ARSTM’s social media and listserv.
c. Creating an award to support and amplify underrepresented rhetorical scholars working on topics related to science, technology, and medicine. We will follow the lead of other professional organizations, including the Conference on College Communication and Composition, the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, and the National Communication Association, in proposing an award to our Board of Directors and membership which will specifically honor and provide material support for underrepresented graduate students’ and junior scholars’ participation in research and professional activities. Current ARSTM leadership will develop a proposal describing this award’s name, nomination process, monetary award amount, and other relevant details.
Deadline: Current ARSTM leadership will share a proposal with the Board of Directors and membership by July 1, 2020.
Update (7/24/2020): It is important that this award, like others we grant, be accompanied by material support in the form of a monetary award. Based on ongoing conversations among current officers and Board members about safeguarding ARSTM’s financial security, we are considering the possibility of proposing broader changes to our financial structures to support adding a new award while remaining fiscally responsible. We anticipate sharing with the Board a developed proposal that details both the award and how to make it financially sustainable by August 15, 2020.
3. Offer COVID-19 Relief MICRO-GRANTS for Marginalized Scholars. The current global pandemic amplifies the chronic history of anti-Black violence. COVID-19 has already disproportionately impacted Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities in the United States. With the cancellation of our Rhetoric Society of America preconference, ARSTM will follow the lead of the American Society for the History of Rhetoric and redirect budgeted funds toward microgrants for marginalized graduate students, contingent faculty, and community scholars in rhetorical studies. This one-time redistribution of unspent funds is a first step towards providing material financial support for underrepresented scholars, and we plan to make this support sustainable via the previously described award, which will include a monetary award.
Deadline: Full details about the COVID-19 Microgrants will be presented to our Board of Directors by Friday, June 12th 2020.
Update (6/12/2020): The ARSTM leadership team has presented its proposal for COVID-19 Microgrants to the ARSTM Board of Directors.
Update (7/24/2020): Based on ongoing conversations about the organization’s financial security, we have decided to defer any micro-grant disbursements until the Fall. We will make a final decision following a membership drive and updates to our financial structures (as described in the 7/24 update for action item 2c.)
4. Develop an ongoing process that generates dialogue and feedback about how to enact and amplify these anti-racist practices. We are committed to the above actions, and calling for feedback will not be in lieu of doing this work. Rather, we want to draw on the collective expertise of our communities in order to make sustainable changes that align our values with our practices. This work will dovetail with elements of action item 2a and will likely involve developing processes for surveying members about our organizational culture and climate, establishing related policies and a code of conduct, and actively soliciting feedback on our CFPs, preconferences, and other communications and events.
Deadline: Current ARSTM leadership will share an initial proposal for generating dialogue and feedback on our immediate actions with the Board of Directors and membership by July 1, 2020. We will develop a proposal for generating long-term and sustainable dialogue and feedback by our annual business meeting at the National Communication Association conference in November 2020.
Update (7/1/2020): We shared in broad strokes with the Board the following possibilities for generating dialogue and feedback about enacting and amplifying anti-racist efforts in ARSTM:
1. Preconferences that center the subject; see, e.g., Cagle’s already announced social justice theme for the ARSTM@NCA 2020 precon.
2. Follow-up POROI special issue from this preconference.
3. Draft future ARSTM NCA CFP’s in accordance with these values.
4. Make anti-racist action an agenda item for the NCA business meeting.
5. Taking a proactive stance in mission statements and policies (and centering those on our website).
6. Virtual Programming: Creating regular virtual reading groups or other kinds of meetings, perhaps focused on our bibliographies. This is a way to generate productive sustained dialogue with current and new members about anti-racist research, teaching, reading, and action.
Each of these possibilities requires intentional follow-up. Our current focus is on 1, 2, and 4, in anticipation of our annual ARSTM events centered on NCA.
We will communicate regularly with our stakeholders, including the ARSTM Board of Directors and the ARSTM membership, about our progress on each of these actions. All communications will be shared via our listserv and social media accounts, as well as on the ARSTM website when appropriate. If we anticipate missing a deadline or do miss a deadline, we will communicate that via listserv and social media and provide a new deadline for the specific action.
These actions are not an end point for ARSTM. Instead, they are a tangible starting point for collective and anti-racist deliberation, advocacy, and action.
To echo other leaders, thank you to those of you already doing anti-racist work, and to those who respond to this and other calls to action.
Black lives matter.
Signed,
Emily Winderman, ARSTM President
Lauren Cagle, ARSTM 1st Vice-President
Kenneth Walker, ARSTM 2nd Vice-President
Daniel Card, ARSTM Secretary
Danielle DeVasto, Social Media Officer
Jay Frank, Web Administrator
Molly Kessler, ARSTM Treasurer
S. Scott Graham, ARSTM Board Member
John A. Lynch, ARSTM Board Member
Zoltan P. Majdik, ARSTM Board Member
Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher, ARSTM Board Member
Lynda C. Olman, ARSTM Board Member
James Wynn, ARSTM Board Member