These student athletes recognized their collective power and utilized it in order to combat a university that didn’t recognize the humanity of black students on their campus.
Advertisement
If 50 students went on a hunger strike together, it likely wouldn’t have as much impact as the football team.
“Students of color are not in need of compassion or empathy, but rather are in need of policy change”, Morrow said”.
The protesters at the University of Missouri have the ability to bring positive change and restore peace on a campus now overtaken with chaos and fear.
“I think it is entirely appropriate for students in a thoughtful, peaceful way to protest what they see as injustices or inattention to serious problems in their midst”, Obama added.
It’s the difference between feeling understood and the pressure of being seen as representing a race, students and others said.
“Every single year we’ve had insensitive comments or insensitive actions of students who don’t seem to value the existence of other students on this campus”, said D’Marquis Allen, a senior and president of SMU’s Association of Black Students.
Gay said the millennial generation is more accepting of diversity. Amid a hostile and racist campus climate felt by black students at the university, Jonathan Butler, a graduate student at Mizzou, declared that he would not consume any food at the expense of his health until President Tim Wolfe was removed from office.
While Missouri had a few unique factors, in particular a boycott started by the black members of the American football team, campuses across the United States are seeing protests by students over racial tensions without the benefit of support from football teams.
Even so, the grievances of the students in Missouri were profound compared with the grievances expressed this week by students at Yale University in New Haven. Wolfe issued an apology four days later, but students continued to demand his resignation. “Following the events at Mizzou, students from universities across the country were able to share their stories under many hashtags, including “#ConcernedStudent1950”. The school system wasted no time hiring a new black president. Last week a committee of the KU Student Senate called for three top student government leaders to resign by Wednesday evening at 5 p.m., or face possible impeachment proceedings. UMass, the State University of NY and others have funded programs meant to boost minority numbers.
Pringle and George said that they did not stand at that moment because they were still pondering the nature of those demands. “There are a lot of programs out there”, McCarthy said.
Racial tension, lack of black faculty, retention of black students and lack of funding and support for the Department of Africana Studies are issues faced at a majority of Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), including Rutgers, she said.
“Look at those guys playing Frisbee – that is the definition of privilege”, one demonstrator said, according to the NY Post. He said that was the first time he dealt with “blatant racism”.
“Universities remain primarily white because they continue to do business as usual as they have done since they were built as intentionally upper class white, male, elite bastions”, he said. They helped change history.
The disparities were less pronounced when the numbers of all non-white faculty were compared with non-white students.
However, many wonder will these student-led demonstrations will accomplish.
Advertisement
“There’s been a campaign of intimidation, where students are going dorm to dorm, floor to floor and asking students to go back to their dorms and put on black if they’re not wearing black”, the parent of one student said. About 7 percent of staff members are Black. The school has relatively large populations of Asian and Hispanic students.
