03/25/2019
Music Club will not be meeting this week, as all executive members will be in Pearsons attending the events mentioned in SIC's post. We hope to see you all there as well.
Dear SIC,
We, the executive board for Students for an Inclusive Campus, do not support the Erik Prince Lecture which will be taking place in Moore Hall on Wednesday, March 27th at 7:30 pm. Prince’s lecture is funded by donations from the National Young Americans for Freedom chapter as well as 5% from the Beloit College Funding Board.
In providing a platform for Prince, Beloit ignores its own 2018 Academic Priorities of “focusing on anti-racism, equity, and inclusive living and learning.”(Bierman, Davies). We believe that Prince’s actions and the actions of his companies Blackwater, sold in 2010 and renamed Academi,(Kirsch) and the Frontier Services Group does work against Beloit’s commitment to becoming an Anti-Racist institution.
Prince is most notable for his company’s involvement in the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, Iraq where Blackwater was responsible for killing or injuring at least 31 civilians(Apuzzo). Although Prince himself was not directly involved with the shooting, he resettled in Abu Dhabi, upset by public criticism(Mazzetti, Hager). We also hope to draw attention to his involvement with the Family Research Council, a group founded with the help of Prince’s father and listed as an “anti-LGBT hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center(Rizga). “Prince is a vice president of his family’s foundation, the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, which gave more than $1.5 million to the Family Research Council in 2014(Woodruff).”
In Xinjiang, China, there are currently 120,000 confirmed, but likely upwards of 1 million Uighur and other Turkic minorities being held in what are essentially concentration camps(NYT Editorial Board). In early October, the Chinese government attempted to paint the camps as vocational training centers and boarding schools, aimed at “bringing Uighurs into the modern era”(NYT Editorial Board). Prince’s company, the Frontier Services Group (FSG), signed a deal on Jan. 11 to build a training center in the Caohu industrial park in the Xinjiang city of Tumxuk(Fifield). The camp would be capable of training 8,000 guards a year, causing fears that these guards would be involved in the repression of the Uighur people. Prince denied knowledge of FSG’s decision to create training facilities on Jan 22nd, a concerning statement given the fact that FSG has had involvement in the Xinjiang area since March 2017(Roche).
We find it ironic that a group identifying itself with the word “freedom” would consider someone such as Prince an appropriate spokesperson given his record of consistently aiding and abetting the repression of ethnic/religious minorities.
We choose to make our disapproval clear by hosting a series of counter-events in Pearsons Hall during the Erik Prince lecture. While we believe that direct confrontation has a place in activism, we are choosing to avoid any reason for YAF to target SIC as being exclusionary of conservative voices. Because of Prince’s history, we do not wish to ask for more emotional labor from marginalized bodies, and we hope these counter events allow you to celebrate your identity rather than listen to someone who, through his actions, has proven he has no regard for marginalized people, and the anti-racist work this college promotes.
In an effort to inform the campus community about the gravity of Erik Prince’s actions as the founder of Blackwater, contributor to the Family Research Council, and FSG activity in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government is incarcerating the Uighur Muslims, SIC has attached an informational poster.
SIC will be providing food in DKs in Pearsons Hall, a drag ball in java joint, and an event called “Baking With the African Americans” in the side room of DK’s, food will begin at 7:30 and the counter events will begin at 8:00 pm and is sponsored by SAGA. SIC also encourages people to attend the art department’s keynote lecture of, Faisal Abdu’Alla, a black Muslim artist who will be speaking in Richardson starting at 8:00 pm.
In strength and solidarity,
SIC Executive Board Spring 2019
Superior Murphy (chairperson)
Yaira Aich
Gabriel Eng Gonzalez
Adanya Gilmore
Charline Davis-Alicea
Hannah Kang
Yolanda Odufuwa
Student Group Endorsements:
SAGA
Asian American Support Group
Boathouse
BSU
The Round Table
FemCo
SHARCC
Bits and Pieces
Chaus Committee
OEC
AΣΤ
Voces
ACS
Sources:
Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service. (2014). Return of Private Foundation or Section 4947(a)(1) Trust Treated as Private Foundation. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/382/382190330/382190330_201406_990PF.pdf?_ga=1.112625164.966296929.1473181036
Woodruff, Betsy. (2016, October, 22). Blackwater Founder Erik Prince, Who Got Rich Off Of Iraq, Now Backs 'Anti-War' Donald Trump. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.thedailybeast.com/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-who-got-rich-off-of-iraq-now-backs-anti-war-donald-trump
Rizga, Kristina. (2017, March/ April). Betsy DeVos Wants to Use America’s Schools to Build “God’s Kingdom”. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/betsy-devos-christian-schools-vouchers-charter-education-secretary
Mazzetti, Mark. Hager, Emily, B. (2011, May, 14). Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html
Apuzzo, Matt. (2017, August, 4). In Blackwater Case, Court Rejects a Murder Conviction and Voids 3 Sentences. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/world/middleeast/blackwater-contractors-iraq-sentences.html
Bierman, Scott. Davies, Ann. (2018, May). Strategic Academic Priorities. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.beloit.edu/academic-affairs/faculty-resources/priotities/
Kirsch, Noah. (2018, April, 4). Blackwater’s Dark Prince Returns. Retrieved March 17, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/return-of-erik-prince/ .
Roche, Gerald. (2019, February, 12). Transnational Carceral Capitalism in Xinjiang and Beyond. Retrieved March 12, 2019, from https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/02/12/transnational-carceral-capitalism-xinjiang/
Fifield, Anna. (2019, February, 1). Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s new company is building training center in Xinjiang. Retrieved March, 17, 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/blackwater-founder-erik-princes-new-company-building-training-center-in-xinjiang/2019/02/01/ac372d40-2602-11e9-ba08-caf4ff5a3433_story.html?utm_term=.16866770f919
https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/opinion/china-uighurs.html
