Black Thriving Initiative Modules

Why are people protesting in the streets and demonstrating in support of Black Lives? This course is free and open to all campus members – undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty and staff employees. Offered quarterly, this course meets one hour per week. Each meeting will be organized around a theme and serve as a focal point of a moderated discussion. These include anti-Blackness, the arc of Black resistance from slavery through the civil rights movement, #blacklivesmatter, 2020, and racial justice on campus.

This short course examines white supremacy and its manifestations overtime and why it is necessary to demonstrate in support of Black Lives in the 21st century. Offered in the summer and quarterly, this course meets one hour per week. Each meeting will be organized around a theme that will serve as a focal point for a moderated discussion. These themes include what is white supremacy, who benefits from whiteness, forms of racial bias, policing black bodies, and the meanings of historical monuments, and being an ally.

The most ambitious goal of the UCI Black Thriving Initiative is to dismantle anti-Black sentiment as a precondition to creating a thriving university culture for Black people. Understanding the ways that bias, prejudice and bigotry impact the lives of Black people is a choice that we must make as individuals and as a campus community. This choice requires each of us to see ourselves in relation to our Black co-workers, colleagues, and undergraduate and graduate students.