Race is an important issue on our campus, and it isn’t going away.
Here's an extremely privileged (white, male, cisgender, straight, able-bodied, suburban-raised) perspective:
My first exposure to the racial divide in America, like many others of my generation growing up in the suburbs of Cincinnati, was the shooting death of Timothy Thomas at the hands of CPD Patrolman Stephen Roach back in 2001. At 9 years old then, I can’t say that I truly understood what was happening.
More recently, the summer before I arrived on campus, a student taking college prep courses at UC, Everette Howard, died after having been shot with a Taser just outside Turner Hall.
Last year, the Dean of the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, Ron Jackson, resigned amidst controversy. Details regarding his resignation are still few and far between, but most agree that race at least belongs in the “conversation”, especially considering the publication of a racist cartoon that predated his resignation by only a few months.
The word “conversation” has been an oft-used word on campus following the recent deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Tamir Rice.
Many students and administration agree that change starts with dialogue. The comfortable majority on campus, namely white people such as myself, need education in order to properly serve as allies for UC’s marginalized communities and beyond.
The true “conversations” that I’ve seen so far have been mostly Facebook and Twitter posts, and open forums held on campus. The forum that I visited was lightly attended. I think there may have been more members of the administration than students. 30 people max, including President Ono and leaders of UCPD.
Unfortunately, the trend that I see is that a vast portion of the comfortable majority seems to be sitting on the sidelines, content to “wait out” the anger until Facebook and Twitter revert to familiar cat videos.
It begs the question- how do we sustain a meaningful, wide-reaching conversation on campus? How do we educate and in turn transform a new generation of students into people who understand racial justice and why it is important for all human beings?
For me, Accelerating Racial Justice (a sub-program of the Racial Awareness Program) was that transformative experience. I can honestly say that I learned more about racial justice in 1 week from ARJ than I learned my entire life up until that point. Articles and blog posts and videos are great, but for me, it was the human component that made it so much more real.
It was the “Each One Teach One”.
I wish everyone could go through one of these programs and emerge on the other side a staunch supporter of racial justice. But ARJ and RAPP have limited reach. It’s part financial resources problem, part “one size does not fit all” problem.
The university is investigating ways to expand social justice education. Options that I’ve heard are on the table or in the works: developing an online curriculum for RAPP, working racial justice into the required curriculum, the common freshman reading assignment, learning communities, and orientation groups.
I think all of these are good, tangible ways for our university to show that racial justice is a priority.
As students, we need to advocate for resources to go towards these projects to show that they are a financial priority. We need to advocate for student participation, both of ourselves and of our friends, and not just the ones who are already invested in racial justice.
There’s no one true way to address the question of race on campus, and I’m definitely not qualified to decide what’s the best. But from my perspective, we have two options: we can express outrage, or, we can express outrage and take steps to hold the university accountable for making real progress.
I’m a fan of the latter, and will support real progress in whichever ways I can.
#BlackLivesMatter
Here's an extremely privileged (white, male, cisgender, straight, able-bodied, suburban-raised) perspective:
My first exposure to the racial divide in America, like many others of my generation growing up in the suburbs of Cincinnati, was the shooting death of Timothy Thomas at the hands of CPD Patrolman Stephen Roach back in 2001. At 9 years old then, I can’t say that I truly understood what was happening.
More recently, the summer before I arrived on campus, a student taking college prep courses at UC, Everette Howard, died after having been shot with a Taser just outside Turner Hall.
Last year, the Dean of the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, Ron Jackson, resigned amidst controversy. Details regarding his resignation are still few and far between, but most agree that race at least belongs in the “conversation”, especially considering the publication of a racist cartoon that predated his resignation by only a few months.
The word “conversation” has been an oft-used word on campus following the recent deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, and Tamir Rice.
Many students and administration agree that change starts with dialogue. The comfortable majority on campus, namely white people such as myself, need education in order to properly serve as allies for UC’s marginalized communities and beyond.
The true “conversations” that I’ve seen so far have been mostly Facebook and Twitter posts, and open forums held on campus. The forum that I visited was lightly attended. I think there may have been more members of the administration than students. 30 people max, including President Ono and leaders of UCPD.
Unfortunately, the trend that I see is that a vast portion of the comfortable majority seems to be sitting on the sidelines, content to “wait out” the anger until Facebook and Twitter revert to familiar cat videos.
It begs the question- how do we sustain a meaningful, wide-reaching conversation on campus? How do we educate and in turn transform a new generation of students into people who understand racial justice and why it is important for all human beings?
For me, Accelerating Racial Justice (a sub-program of the Racial Awareness Program) was that transformative experience. I can honestly say that I learned more about racial justice in 1 week from ARJ than I learned my entire life up until that point. Articles and blog posts and videos are great, but for me, it was the human component that made it so much more real.
It was the “Each One Teach One”.
I wish everyone could go through one of these programs and emerge on the other side a staunch supporter of racial justice. But ARJ and RAPP have limited reach. It’s part financial resources problem, part “one size does not fit all” problem.
The university is investigating ways to expand social justice education. Options that I’ve heard are on the table or in the works: developing an online curriculum for RAPP, working racial justice into the required curriculum, the common freshman reading assignment, learning communities, and orientation groups.
I think all of these are good, tangible ways for our university to show that racial justice is a priority.
As students, we need to advocate for resources to go towards these projects to show that they are a financial priority. We need to advocate for student participation, both of ourselves and of our friends, and not just the ones who are already invested in racial justice.
There’s no one true way to address the question of race on campus, and I’m definitely not qualified to decide what’s the best. But from my perspective, we have two options: we can express outrage, or, we can express outrage and take steps to hold the university accountable for making real progress.
I’m a fan of the latter, and will support real progress in whichever ways I can.
#BlackLivesMatter