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Statement of Support for the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community

We’d like to take a moment to address the violence against Asian and Asian American communities that has been rampant over the past year and that has recently culminated in a shooting in Georgia on Tuesday, March 16th. Eight people, including six women of Asian descent, are dead: Delaina Ashley Yaun Gonzalez, 33; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Yong Ae Yue, 63; and Paul Andre Michels, 54. Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, 30, is currently in intensive care following this shooting. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. There have been almost 3,800 anti-Asian attacks over this past year, fueled by racism as well as the deeply harmful and violent rhetoric that has blamed Asian people for the current pandemic. We at the Center for Literary Publishing and Colorado Review stand with and in support of the AAPI community; this violence is unacceptable and must stop.

The history of anti-Asian violence in the United States has been largely ignored or glossed over, but that history is prevalent nonetheless. We at the CLP are committed to continuing our education about systemic racism, recognizing how we have participated, and using our platform within the literary community to uplift AAPI voices and stories.

We encourage you to follow Stop AAPI Hate on any social media accounts you have. They are an organization working to put an end to this wave of hatred and violence. On their website, you can report any incidents of anti-Asian violence as well as make donations. GoFundMe has also created a central page for verified fundraisers to help victims of anti-Asian violence. This article from CNN for more information about this violence and what you can do to help.

Statement of Support for Black Lives Matter

We write to you, along with so many others, from a place of mourning and anger, to say loudly and clearly that Black lives matter. In a matter of weeks, we’ve seen the murder of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Tony McDade at the hands of an unjust system. As Claudia Rankine writes, “Because white men can’t / police their imagination / black men are dying.” Those we have named are not the only people whose lives have been lost to systemic racism and violence directed toward the Black community. There are many whose stories have not been told, whose names have not been spoken during protests, and these facts, these deaths, these conditions are unacceptable. We stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

In publishing, we believe in the power of art and literature to uplift voices and create change. Literature is an ongoing conversation, one in which works from a variety of voices are necessarily in dialogue with one another, even when that dialogue becomes difficult. This moment in history is one such conversation, and it demands that we continue to talk with and hold one another and ourselves accountable for our words, actions, and participation. We pledge to be active participants in uplifting the Black community both inside and outside of the arts. We commit to continually educating ourselves about systemic racism, recognizing the ways in which we participate in it, and using our platforms to share Black voices, resources, and ways to take action. We acknowledge that this fight for Black lives will not be an easy one, and we are committed to using our platforms to support Black lives and Black writing and to further the conversation. This is neither the beginning nor the end of the work that we at the Center for Literary Publishing and Colorado Review have to do; the systemic problems of police brutality and white supremacy affect the larger BIPOC community in its entirety, and our commitment extends just as far. We hope that you will join us in the coming days to continue dismantling the systemic racism in our global culture, our country, and in our own literary community.