Trump victory calls for reflection, not just protests
14th November 2016 · 0 Comments
By Mizani Ball
Contributing Writer
Last Tuesday’s election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States triggered protests in several cities, including in New Orleans. At Dillard University on Nov. 9, university leaders held a post-election panel on what a Trump presidency could mean for the country in an election that showed divisions amongst race and class.
The university’s vice president for Academic Affairs, Yolanda Page, said she wanted to reassure students and the wider community that life will continue after the election.
“This was an opportunity for people to know that it is not necessarily the doomsday that people woke up feeling that it is,” Page said. “There will be life after, of course.”
Page, along with the university student body president Tevon Blair facilitated the panel that included Gary Clark, a professor of political science, Keith Wismar, a professor of psychology, Robert Collins, a professor of urban studies and public policy and Kimberley Washington, an instructor in accounting and personal finance. The Rev. Earnest Salsberry, the university chaplain, also participated.
The panel worked to clarify the sense of confusion and despair captured both in the streets and on social concern about a future President Trump’s policies. Several students had participated in protests in the city’s downtown the night of the election. Prior to the panel discussion, Dillard students had gathered in the university’s Kearny Hall on campus, concerned about the changes that will occur after Trump’s win. The university’s student body was also still recovering from protests by students and the community after David Duke was allowed to participate in a Louisiana Senate race debate on campus on Nov. 4 that resulted in arrests, but no charges, and some students being pepper-sprayed. The university hoped to calm some of the anxiety on campus and help students understand the political process.
With Democrat Hillary Clinton carrying the popular vote, Clark explained that the Electoral College was designed to reflect a representative vote by the population, and not a popular one. Clark also told students that no politician speaks for him or herself, but that they campaign on the issues impacting their supporters.
“You still have to articulate the interest of the group and so once you lose that interest of the group, that’s when you lose your influence and that is when you are destined to decay,” Clark said. Trump would now have to deliver on his campaign promises, which still requires him to work with others in government.
For African Americans concerned with what that means for many of the policies President Obama put in place, university chaplain Earnest Salsberry reminded students that faith has always comforted the Black community. He told students that many of the leaders of the civil rights era were men and women of faith, and the church was both a vehicle for activism, action and hope in uncertain times.
“We’ve been marching to the beat of the music of politics and politicians when historically we are responsible for building this country,” Salsberry said. “If we are able to build this country, we have the authority and power to still have control, regardless of what color the state or house is,” he said.
The panelists challenged students to look beyond protesting for real solutions. University president Walter Kimbrough asked students to consider service or careers that would improve the African-American community and social and economic outcomes for Black people, other than marching in the streets.
“This needs to be a wake-up call for people,” Kimbrough said. “They have to get more civically engaged. We gotta’ move from protest culture, which I think we’ve got in to, to policy-action culture,” Kimbrough said.
Students said they attended in search of an environment on campus where they could vent and come to terms with the election’s results after a long campaign season that tired, frustrated and even frightened many voters.
“This event started a process of healing,” said Mariah Hickman, a junior at Dillard. “I think a lot of us were upset in this community and shocked. This served as a place where we can plan to move forward and move on, despite our disappointment,” she said.
This article originally published in the November 14, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
