Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old Black woman and Detroit resident, was a recent graduate of Southfield High School. She was also an employee of the Ford Motor Co. During the early morning of Nov. 2, Renisha was in a car accident in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights. Seeking help, Renisha knocked on the door of white male homeowner Theodore Paul Wafer, who police say shot unarmed Renisha in her face, leaving her dead on his porch. Thirteen days later, Mr. Wafer was charged with second-degree murder. This murder is unjust, and it is outrageous he can claim self-defense under a Michigan “stand your ground” law.

This sadness and rage should not be recurring as these crimes are systemic and fit within a larger history of violence inflicted on unarmed, innocent Black bodies. The recent murder of 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell in North Carolina, and the well-known murders of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida and the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi are evidence of this legacy.

Now that Renisha has been added to this long and tragic list, we must also bring awareness to the long-standing relationship the Dearborn area has with racism. During well-known segregationist Orville Hubbard’s series of mayoral terms between 1942 and 1978, his “Keep Dearborn Clean” slogan was quoted by Dearborn lifelong resident, David Good, in The New York Times as “a catch phrase meaning, ‘Keep Dearborn White.’” Thirty-five years later, Dearborn Heights still is known as a sundown town, which references the potential violence Blacks face on the streets after sundown. Using a “stand your ground” defense in a case such as Wafer’s would evoke a racialized history of segregation and violence in Dearborn and the Detroit area.

“Stand your ground” laws replaced lynch laws of the Jim Crow era, and now serve as justification for the slaughtering of unarmed Black men and women in communities throughout this country. The American legal premise of “innocent until proven guilty” has only been a privilege extended to certain groups to the exclusion of others. As Renisha’s murderer invokes his “rights” of self-defense, we must acknowledge the created culture of fear permeating throughout society, which perceives Black bodies as guilty in the public eye and as threats in public spaces. These perceptions now serve as justification for both police and civilians to gun down Black people anywhere at any point in time. Additionally, post-racial rhetoric is an attempt to convince us these current murders are, in fact, not about race. We refuse to remain silent while this racialized violence is continuously perpetrated against our brothers and sisters and the perpetrators hide behind a racialized culture of fear. As members of the MSU community, we feel the pain of Renisha’s family and that of other Black women and men who have been killed and still are awaiting justice. We feel the pain of the Detroit community. We mourn their loss. We demand justice, and our voices will be heard!

As members of the Lansing-area Black community at MSU, it is our responsibility to heighten awareness about this tragedy. We commit ourselves to spreading continuous awareness of the tragic death of Renisha McBride and using all available resources to end the continued violence targeting our communities. We stand in solidarity with the McBride family in addition to the activists in Detroit and across the nation. Finally, we, as part of a unified body, commit ourselves to actively mobilizing until justice is served. We stand in solidarity for both justice and for the preservation of Black life, and will not sit idle as our humanity is continuously and systematically robbed from us.

Cosigned by the Sankofa Graduate Association, Black Student Alliance, W.E.B. DuBois Society, Black Graduate Student Association, African Student Union, Michigan State University Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Michigan State University Chapter of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, African Student Leadership Association and the Black Faculty, Staff, and Administrators Association.