To our readers, contributors, advisors, faculty and administration, our journal teams past and present, our colleagues and friends, and members of the architectural publishing community:
We believe that Black Lives Matter.
We mourn and are enraged by the murders of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, George Floyd, and the countless other Black lives that have been taken through force by systemic racism in the government, police forces, and society at large.
The intersecting pandemics of COVID-19 and racism have made us acutely aware that our society continues to be deeply entrenched in and dependent on systems of white supremacy. We recognize that specifically, Black people have continuously been devalued and dehumanized through institutionalized acts of slavery, police brutality, and economic inequality. From segregated suburbs to prisons, to Western canons & frames of reference, to the environmental racism laid bare by the pandemic, architects and spatial designers are directly implicated in perpetuating these systems of oppression.
In this continued struggle for equality, we turn to the work of generations of activists, leaders and grassroots anti-racist communities in the East Bay. Locally, we have much to learn from radical organizations of the past and present: from the Black Panther Party and Berkeley’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to Moms 4 Housing and the Anti-Police Terror Project, all whom have led exemplary organized protests, marches, sit-ins, strikes, grassroots systems of mutual aid that work towards a new vision of a more equitable future.
Within our own student community, we stand in solidarity with CEDSOC (CED Students of Color), GASU (Graduate Architecture Student Union), AIAS (American Institute of Architecture Students UC Berkeley) chapter, their ongoing work and their calls to action.
While we are just a tiny student-run journal, we recognize that our publishing platform has the power to amplify student visions and the responsibility to hold ourselves, and the Department of Architecture, accountable. Over these past few weeks, we’ve taken time to reflect and hold internal conversations to reach the following commitments.
To us, they represent the beginning of a necessary and on-going dialogue toward dismantling racism in the academic and publishing institutions in which we work. We put forth these values and hope that as the journal changes hands year to year, these commitments will continue to built on, and importantly, acted on.
Our Commitments:
Journal as a Platform: Center and amplify QTBIPOC voices.
An ongoing commitment to publishing unheard voices, in current and future issues. This necessarily means annually auditing internal processes to prioritize inclusivity, from the call for proposal, solicitations, curation, distribution and overall accessibility.
Actively seek to broaden perspectives on our themes by highlighting unpublished and emerging authors, while working to lower barriers of participation, such as obtaining funding for honorariums.
Form our own value judgement systems that can critically examine and challenge institutional norms of thinking. We must actively challenge our euro-centric education, perspectives and internalized beliefs surrounding the thinking and practice of architecture.
Journal as a Community: Build solidarity and listen.
Recruit QTBIPOC team members of the journal, especially to serve as editors and other positions of leadership.
Recognize that the lack of diversity in our public university is ultimately reflected in the composition of our team. Institutionally, this takes place on all scales: campus wide, there are less than 4% of students who identify as Black, and within the Architecture Department, student organizations have deemed Black representation in both faculty and students as “unacceptably low”. As a team, proactively self-educate and broaden conversation with other on and off campus Black-led and POC-led organizations.
Host round table conversations surrounding anti-racism practices within the RM1000 community. Work to organize conversations with other student journals, the architecture publishing community, readers and contributors etc. to arrive at shared values, and commitments to action.
Build resources and systems of continuity from year to year. Share these openly and incorporate the best practices of others.
Journal as Lab: Explore radical thinking towards social justice in architecture and the built environment.
Critically examine and engage with the mediums of print and digital as a way to dismantle racism and injustices within the field and larger society.
Use the journal as a way to invite, support, and work with diverse expertise of QTBIPOC contributors and collaborators, and bring their voices into the CED.
Leverage our journal to support anti-racist design, discussion, and action.
As students and designers, the way we think and write about the built environment must directly connect us to a more just future. We, at Room One Thousand, hold ourselves accountable to furthering the goals of anti-racist design, and to confronting the systems and institutions that uphold oppression and violence on all scales. As future architects, and as members of many overlapping communities, we remain dedicated to architecture’s role in the collective action with hopes that the future will hold more magic for us all.
Sincerely,
RM1000 Issue 8 Team
Athena Do (graphics co-editor) Tara Shi (co-editor in chief) Marta Elliot (co-editor in chief) Adam Cutts (graphics co-editor)
Minhae Shim Roth (editorial, contributor) Zach Whiteman (editorial) Ari Bible (finance) Caroline Chen (editorial) Elena Bouton (editorial, graphics) Reagan Lauder (editorial) Claire Jang (editorial, graphics)
