Campuses around the nation are starting to protest and speak out against racism on college campuses. While some believe that these protests are unnecessary and distracting, there are those who believe that these protests are the only way their voices could be heard. These nonviolent protests date back to frustrations from last fall semester when there was delayed outcry on the University of Missouri campus concerning the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Most people did not hear of this incident until the football team decided to boycott playing another game, the decision that forced Wolfe, the University President, to resign.
According to a timeline organized by NBC News, these recent events can be traced back to early September. The head of the Missouri Student’s Association, Payton Head, claims he was walking through campus when men in the back of a pickup truck called him the N-word. This sparked complaints to campus police from Head and his friends. A few days then passed, the school paper picked up the story, but no response from administration.
On September 16th, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin posted on Twitter, “Hate has no place on the Mizzou campus., followed by a link to a public statement that states that he has “heard from far too many of you who have experienced incidents of bias and discrimination on and off campus.” On October 5th, a black student government group on campus complained of a white, drunk male interrupting their session and using the N-word. Three days later, Chancellor Loftin announced mandatory online diversity training.
In an effort to make a statement, a group of students referred to themselves as Concerned Student 1950 (named for the year black students were first admitted to the University of Missouri) and protested the school homecoming parade, blocking a red convertible in which President Wolfe was the passenger. In the video, the students stood in solidarity in front of the car in order to finish their heartfelt speeches. The President did not get out of his car and acknowledge the students; instead they were treated as if they were traffic. This is what essentially led to the call for his resignation. The group demanded an apology after this incident on October 21st, and three days later, a swastika drawn in feces was found on a bathroom wall in a dorm. Three days after this horrific incident, President Wolfe decided to meet with the group of concerned students. While it is not clear to me what the demands of the students were, he did not appease them. After multiple nonviolent protests were carried out by different groups of students on campus, black
University of Missouri football players released a statement on Nov. 7th threatening to boycott the season until Wolfe “resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experiences.” In a press conference following the incident, he stated that he “takes full responsibility” and “hoped it would help the University heal.”
While there are those who stand in solidarity, there are those who stand in opposition of these protests as well. These individuals believe that the University president was a good man that did not deserve to lose his job. However, these sentiments tend to undermine the efforts made by the concerned students. Missouri LieutenantGovernorKinderblames the left and calls Missouri’s protests “appalling.” Kinder states how many conservatives have “allowed this to happen” by “averting our gaze as tenured radicals have taken over the university.” He added, “we could not avert our gaze from the appalling events at the University of Missouri in the last week”.
The reactions to recent events hint that black students’ concerns (as they pertain to their college experience) are delusional and unnecessary.
Social media and news outlets continue to act as catalysts by sparking protests and campaigns at universities across the nation. In response, faculties at these universitiesarestartingtorecognize their own faults as students start to voice their opinions. For example, the Dean of Students at Claremont McKenna College in California resigned after reports that students conducted hunger strikes to bring attention to the black students that have received a lack of support. Students at Ithaca, Plattsburgh, Yale, Vanderbilt, and many others such as our own had mainly black students and allies showing respect for Missouri students by pledging solidarity. Students achieved this by wearing all black on Thursday, Nov. 12 or marching and protesting on their campuses.
So how does this relate to us? According to Forbes, three percent of St. Lawrence’s student body is black while 80 percent are white.
Our campus is not exempt from this phenomenon and we should be proactive as a community to combat it. Some students here at SLU have decided to participate in this social movement because they either relate to this systemic problem or respect Missouri students’s concerns. The black students on this campus are indeed a minority, and it is very possible that some have experienced some sort of exclusion or discrimination by their peers.
Whether the racism is overt or discrete, it still lingers in 2015 and we need to support our fellow black students during times of national unrest. In an interview about her support for #Mizzou, sophomore Global Studies/French major Rian Falcon introduced a new group on campus. She states, “Carefree Black Girls was founded to give the black women at SLU a safe space on campus where we could talk about, and find solutions to our unique experiences on a predominantly white campus. For our first event, we have decided to host a photo campaign to express our solidarity with Mizzou. To continue the campaign, we hope to host a panel when we return from break. We hope to include insightful faculty, staff, and students on campus. On Thursday November 12th, a group of students wore all black to express our solidarity with Mizzou. This day, I felt unity and power with my fellow people of color and was heartened to see that so many students welcome change.”
Personally I have never been a fan of racism or anything that resembles it. I cannot say that there are striking examples of racism here at SLU, but what I will say is that every semester since I’ve been here I have been discretely reminded that race still creates barriers amongst people that we see on a day-to-day basis. In the end, we are all students that study here, we are all here to learn, and we all have goals. Humans want to be accepted, respected and we want to move forward. Let’s break bad habits and realize our generation is a different group of people.