By KOMABA TIMES EDITORS
2020 has not been a bright year so far, but the last two weeks have revealed exactly how much work there is to do for all of us. The Komaba Times team stands with everyone who is feeling disbelief, grief, and anger over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, along with countless others. Systemic racism as well as police brutality faced by Black people need to become things of the past.
As a student-run publication, Komaba Times must use the privilege of its platform to amplify BIPOC voices. This means that for the time being, we will be minimizing our other content, to share and create globally and locally relevant information on the issue. Together with our readers, we want to educate ourselves about systemic racism, examine how it is reiterated in the communities we belong to, and understand how to overcome it. In doing so, we are open to feedback and to sharing your work if you want to add something to the conversation.
Anti-Blackness, xenophobia, the curtailing of freedom of speech, and police violence are disturbing global phenomena that we all have a responsibility to actively guard against in our own communities. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We must not forget that these issues prevail and manifest in various forms around the world, including here in Japan, where recently a Kurdish man was subjected to racial profiling and physical assault by the police. We urge the UTokyo community, along with everybody in Tokyo and Japan, to reflect on our own privileges, complicity, and accountability in injustices we see in the news, which may often seem distant from our own lives.
Now more than ever, we must take the time to listen, learn, reflect, add to, and grow from the activism happening around the world. The Komaba Times stands with others who join the global movement towards not just demanding the world that we want, but actively creating it.
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