MFA App Review is now closed. Read our full statement here <3
B l a c k L i v e s m a t t e r
MFA App Review as a project is indebted to Black brilliance and Black lives, as are the individuals behind the project, as are most of the institutions (physical and theoretical) with which we engage. This debt is incalculable, unrepayable, and absolutely not monolithic. Our stance, informed by Fred Moten’s work in The Undercommons, is not toward repayment but toward:
1. Further elaboration of what we have learned, principally that we must work to dismantle anti-Black institutions, from the police that keep people caught up on bs and not writing, to the university writing programs that are often bittersweet sites of tokenizing, trivializing, and other violences and short-changes, and toward;
2. Further redistribution of these institutions's resources (money, stability, healthcare, protected time to write, clout access, legitimacy papers, what else? So much). MFA App Review is a concrete way we can connect and support the writers with whom we (as writers, as thinkers, as book-buyers) want to be in community and conversation.
MFA App Review is an organization that is committed to doing anti-racist work. We acknowledge that institutions are inherently racist, colorist, and anti-Black—this includes the universities and colleges and departments that house MFA programs. MFA App Review does not work for any institution—we only hope to redistribute the wealth and resources that institutions harbor, conceal, and hide through impenetrable processes, arbitrary rules, fees, “grants,” “fellowships,” and other miscellaneous institutional nonsense. The purpose of the MFA App Review is to provide free services in order to help out individuals that these institutions discriminate against; ultimately, for applicants to take advantage of the money, education, and health insurance that these programs provide—as well as time to write.
Volunteering with or supporting MFA App Review does not make a person immune from engaging in anti-Black racism in its many forms and is not a substitute for supporting Black-led projects.
You can read The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study for free, here.