Anti-Black racism is sustained by systems of discrimination that are pervasive accross our society, and academic spaces are no exception. Inspired by the recent #ShutDownSTEM movement and in response to the continued violence against Black people in the United States, #ShutdownPL aims to offer a safe space in which to collaborate and take action against racism and systems of oppression in the programming languages community and beyond.
Important note: As of now, none of the organizers of #ShutdownPL are Black. We do not want to demand labor of Black voices; however, the last thing we want is an organization of non-Black researchers speaking for and taking actions on the behalf of Black researchers without their input. Accordingly, we will ensure all our commitments to act begin from a place of listening to the Black community within and beyond programming languages research.
We announce news via our Twitter account, @ShutdownPL. If you want to get in touch with the organizers of #ShutdownPL, please email us at shutdownpl.organizers@gmail.com.
If you’re interested in helping volunteer for #ShutdownPL, please reach out to us at shutdownpl.organizers@gmail.com to get involved!
We use the #ShutdownPL tag on social media, and we encourage you to do the same. You can also use our banner and logo (licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) that were designed by Aaron Weiss to talk about and support our official events.