Across the Globe, Scientists Are Striking for Black Lives
https://www.wired.com/story/across-the-globe-scientists-are-striking-for-black-lives/
Since the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many researchers out of their labs and field sites and most students from their classrooms and dorms, the process of learning about and doing science has moved almost entirely online. Lab group meetings have migrated to Zoom; office hours to Slack; manuscript writing to Google Docs. But today, all over the US and across the globe, thousands of scientists—as well as scholarly societies, journal publishers, and university departments—are hitting pause on even these virtual activities to protest anti-Black racism in the world of research.
The killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by Minneapolis Police Department officers on May 25 has sparked weeks of ongoing nationwide demonstrations against police brutality. But it has also forced millions of white and non-Black Americans into a reckoning with the racist systems that they participate in and benefit from. Corporations put out statements of solidarity. People posted black squares to Instagram and Twitter. Similarly milquetoast messages went out from university officials to their faculty and students. But Black scientists and their allies weren’t having it.