Salam Awad is a political science professor and lecturer at CWU, who hosted a virtual panel as part of The Art of Global Protest series. The event took the audience through the Black Lives Matter movement and through protests throughout the world, sharing similar struggles other minority groups have faced. 

She was joined by supporting panelists who presented: Marwa Ghazali from CWU Anthropology, Masonya Bennett from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) Anthropology, and Cece Carpio, an artist whose pieces draw inspiration from topics like racial solidarity and protesting. 

The panel, held on Thursday, Feb. 19, was co-sponsored by the CWU Museum of Culture & Environment and the Department of World Languages and Cultures. 

Awad’s introduction on Black liberation and the universalist messages served as a preface to her presentation about Palestentian and Black solidarity. She shared about martyrs who had died standing up for their rights and protesting militarized police brutality.

In 2020, Black Lives Matter protests peaked heavily after George Floyd was killed by police brutality on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to ABC, a poll revealed that 74% of Americans felt that the killing of Floyd was part of a broader problem in the treatment of African Americans by police. 

That tragic event sparked the largest protests in U.S. history as an estimated 15-26 million people participated by summer 2020, with at least one protest held in every state and Washington D.C. At least 80 international cities also participated in their own BLM protests in solidarity but also as a way to introduce the parallels to similar experiences they were facing globally in their own countries.

Carpio’s artwork reflects how powerful art becomes during politics. She shared her thoughts on artwork near her in Downtown Oakland, CA and how Carpio felt compelled to create.

“Within my community, my visual arts community, this is our means of protesting. This is our means of speaking and getting our voice heard, through visual images,” Carpio said. “Just because we know that as protests are happening, what are the images left behind?”

Dr. Ghazali’s presentation about Egyptian uprisings and ongoing anti-police brutality protests, she said, explain that this is a global phenomenon that people are becoming aware of, and need to be addressed. The depth of the presentation comes from how personal this topic is to her research and her community. 

Dr. Bennett was able to share about Black Lives Matter in relation to activists in the Carribean and Latin America. Her striking presentation about transnational Black resistance in both of these areas highlighted the strength and resilience of people across the world.

The messages from these panelists served as an inspiration to the audience to expand what they knew about American experiences and help them understand the civil unrest other groups around the world are also facing.

Awad’s classes this upcoming quarter at CWU will focus on topics such as American politics, contemporary issues in comparative politics, and the history of Muslim American experiences in the U.S. She said her Palestinian background is one of the reasons she became interested initially in the politics she now teaches about.

“Growing up there were challenges rooted in my identity,” Awad said. “My objective with political science was wanting to understand the politics to lead the world where it is now. Once I got in, one of the things I realized was I wanted to teach because I wanted young kids to engage and be aware.”

When asked about what she hopes the audience will take away from the panel, Awad said she hoped the takeaway would be the idea that every human being on the planet is entitled to their human rights and that audience members would leave with more determination to actively combat racism.