We find ourselves entering the 106th Volume of the Riverdale Review following a summer marked by an international pandemic, police brutality, consequent social uprisings, and a national reckoning with the systemic racism that has been entrenched in our country for centuries. As an editorial staff, we refuse to simply observe as the civil unrest unfolds. It should not have taken the horrific murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery for us to reform our newspaper, but we are committing ourselves to take these events as incitement for a critical, comprehensive, and much-needed look in the mirror.
We would like to begin by apologizing for growing negligent about the racial oppression that exists in our Riverdale community and the world, for our lack of focus on issues of social justice, and the similitude of voices that we have featured. We recognize that we should have used our platform to address the blatant racism and discrimination that our fellow community members of color face on a daily basis in this community and society at large. The paper stands in solidarity with the students, faculty and staff members of color at Riverdale, and we pledge that we will not rest in silence.
We, the editorial board of Volume 106, are dedicated to committing our space, time, and energy to combatting discrimination in our community. Firstly, we will engage in the continuous fight against racism by representing a diversity of opinions, beliefs, and voices in each issue. We will stop giving the microphone to only a sector of our entire community and use our widespread readership to amplify the voices of those who have previously been silenced. We will seek to publish articles that educate, empower, and incite Riverdale students and faculty to take concrete action. We will make it a goal to equip our readers with the tools that they need to be active antiracists, allies, and to make progress by directing people to relevant resources and giving step-by-step processes through which change is possible within our institution. We will be more mindful of the way we talk about class, race, gender, and sexual orientation in an intersectional manner within the paper, and when recruiting underclassmen to join the activity and become editors, we will actively seek a diverse team of students.
When thinking about article content, we must understand that journalism requires holding those in power accountable for their actions. We will no longer shy away from thoroughly exploring, with a critical lens, the various aspects of Riverdale that need to be reformed. We will no longer choose to avoid difficult, uncomfortable, and potentially controversial articles. We pledge to engage in investigative journalism by featuring student groups that bring about change to show our readers how one can actually bring about change in this school, or by conducting deep explorations of our school’s curricula and policies.
With this new approach, we hope that The Riverdale Review will become a conduit of communication amongst students and faculty that can also be used as conversation starters and educational tools in classes. With each volume, we are making it a goal to increase the readership of the Review, but this time it is not for the sake of ourselves; it is for the sake of the community at large as we want to ensure that voices represented in the paper are heard by as many people as possible.
Finally, going forward, the efforts of this issue will not just be an anomaly; as a staff, we are dedicated to engaging in a persistent effort to make Riverdale a more equitable, respectful, and just community. We have been missing this direction of energy in the newspaper for a long time, and we want to make up for lost space that we should have been filling with articles that support BIPOC and LGBTQIA+, thoroughly investigate aspects of the school, and champion change-makers. In order to make real change, we promise to continue to engage in the fight against inequities and follow this mission for each and every edition to come.
