Dedication

This year’s journal is dedicated to those impacted by the continued systematic injustices including but not limited to our governments continued inaction toward gun reform and the persecution of our trans and LGBTQ community. We encourage our readers to join us in researching the greater impact to act on genuine modes of change. Some resources are momsdemandaction.org and the trevorproject.org.

Commitment to Anti-Racism

The faculty and staff of Penumbra stand in unity with communities of color,who have long been the victims of systemic racism, violence, and murder. We will not allow those assassinated by police brutality and white supremacy to be forgotten. With a heavy heart, we remember George Floyd, Auhmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, as well as the victims of the Atlanta spa shootings, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Paul Andre Michels, Delaina Ashley Yaun, and Elcias R. Hernandez-Ortiz. We also turn our minds to the lesser known victims, the ones who are taken away each day, but whose stories do not appear on the national news. Even though we may not know their names, their absense will be felt throughout the world. We owe these people fundamental changes in our local, state, and national governments to espouse equality for all and root out systemic racism. We are outraged by the acts of police brutality that continue to be committed against communities of color and we support the efforts of protesters to reveal and rebuke the legacies of white supremacy from our core national ideologies. Racist systems have long been present in the publishing industry and we are committed to breaking racist publishing processes and standards. We are dedicated to promoting, highlighting, and celebrating the work of Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian American, LGBTQIA+ writers and artists and all groups marginalized by systems of hate and oppression. We make this commitment today, tomorrow, and always to diversify our publications and uproot oppressive practices and ideologies that attempt to silence marginalized groups. Penumbra rejects those attempts at silencing and offers a space to amplify the voices of the oppressed.