As black students impatient about reforms, my generation took over administration building offices, wore big Afro’s, shouted “Black Power”, made the powers-that-be uncomfortable to gain attention to grievances.
Advertisement
At MU last week, university system President Tim Wolfe and R. Bowen Loftin, chancellor of the Columbia campus, resigned amid the school’s protests over racial tension.
The protests at the University of Missouri and Yale University have given us endless tales of racial slights and looming violence at campuses nationwide. “I think KU has been very stagnant in being able to provide change and a welcoming environment for minorities”.
Students are arriving on campus believing racism remains persistent in America today. The Missouri student body was not satisfied with the actions of the president after their homecoming parade. Organizers posted flyers and sent Facebook messages inviting undergraduates to wear black clothing and join two demonstrations to support people of color who are “marginalized and threatened”.
Sheryce Holloway said she is exhausted of white people at Virginia Commonwealth University asking if they can touch her hair or if she knows the latest dance move. “Just because we’re going to get a degree from these shiny institutions doesn’t mean we’re that much different”. Unlike, say, the protesters, who have been tweeting things like “It’s typically white media who don’t understand the importance of respecting black spaces” and “If you have a problem with us wanting to have our spaces that we create respected, leave!” And when members of Loyola Black Voices organized Mizzou solidarity actions in Chicago, they included a call for the university to divest from Israel among their demands. “It was great to see so many people come out to support something we haven’t fully experienced firsthand”. Head said he had been told he wouldn’t win because he’s black and at the time was not a member of a fraternity.
Pringle and George said that they did not stand at that moment because they were still pondering the nature of those demands.
Students and many academics say bringing those numbers up isn’t just for statistics’ sake, or even justice; it’s also a matter of learning and mentorship.
Recent off-campus protest movements – in particular Black Lives Matter and, to a few extent, the Occupy movement – have changed the nature of black student organising on campuses.
“Studies show that students normally do better if they’re taught by people that can relate to them, not only economically or socially, but racially because naturally we face similar struggles, being adults, students, staff”, State University of NY at Buffalo student Deidree Golbourne, 20, told the Associated Press. Members of the University’s Legion of Black Collegiates said they were called racial slurs by an unknown person while rehearsing for a performance they were putting on.
Students of color have organized campaigns at Colgate University, the University of MI, UCLA, and Harvard, among other schools, to highlight inequities.
“That illustrates that Mizzou’s concerns for their minority students lie exclusively in their wallets”, Higginbotham said.
Advertisement
Speakers noted the fact that only 14 Black men were admitted to the school’s Class of 2019, and that of the school’s 8,000 students, only 5.4 percent are Black. And young black professors are more likely to wind up in dead-end adjunct positions, which more and more colleges are adopting as a cost-saving measure. Thanks to this student-led initiative, President John J. DeGioia has agreed to change the names of Mulledy Hall and McSherry Hall. “And the conversation shouldn’t just be happening one time”. Reine Ibala, a senior at Yale, described either feeling “invisible” on campus, or like she was an intruder and couldn’t rely on bystanders to help if something happened. “Here in New Haven, the assumption is first that I am a ‘townie'”. Experts in race relations, student life and campus activism reach no consensus about the protest movement and its meaning.
