Show me something
16th November 2015 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
I am so proud of the students and student-athletes at the University of Missouri right now.
How could I not be after learning of these young people’s ongoing efforts to bring justice, equity and inclusion to the flagship university in the Show-Me State?
For those who have been sleepwalking, binging on reality TV or immersed in monitoring their friends, enemies and frienemies’ Facebook pages, students at the University of Missouri were so fed up with the administration’s failure and/or refusal to do something about a host of issues and a series of racist and anti-Semitist incidents that they decided to harness their power and take matters into their own hands.
The incidents in question include racial slurs yelled at the University of Missouri’s Black student body president from someone in a pickup truck, death threats by someone who threatened to shoot every Black person on campus, the use of cotton balls to litter the outside of the Black Cultural Center and the scrawling of a swastika with human feces.
Not exactly the kinds of things you expect on the campus of an institution of higher learning in “Post-Racial America.”
Things finally reached a boiling point with one student, Jonathan Butler, committing to a hunger strike and scores of “Racism Lives Here” protesters letting the administration and the world know that they had had enough.
Ultimately, the institution’s system president and chancellor agreeing to step down last week and the university assured the students and their families that it is “working toward real, enduring change” that will address the issues presented by the protesters.
I was blown away by the fact that the University of Missouri football team actually got involved and decided to not play another down of football until the university cleaned up its act. While maybe not as well-known as some of the powerhouse college football programs in the U.S., the University of Missouri is still a major college football program in every sense. Every fall, the program rakes in millions of dollars in football ticket sales, concessions and merchandise.
None of that mattered once the football players had decided they’d had enough.
Could you imagine that happening at the University of Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, USC or the University of Michigan?
Because it is more rare than a $2 bill or a four-leaf clover, the boycott was a major shock to our collective system. And to the powers that be that probably never imagined that the student-athletes would take such a strong stand against racism.
But it was not without precedent.
Grambling State University’s G-Men, another set of Tigers donning black and gold (with a dash of red), made a similar move two years ago when the football team decided that it had had enough of poor training facilities and accommodations and would not travel to Jackson, Miss. to play its Southwestern Athletic Conference rival Jackson State University.
There are, of course, many who still don’t get it, like the recent caller to WWL radio who dismissed all charges of racism at the University of Missouri since the school has a Black student body president. Apparently, things are supposed to be all hunky dorey once an overwhelmingly white constituency elects a Black president. That sounds strangely like claims of the onset of Post-Racial America with the election of President Barack Obama despite mushrooming gun purchases by whites and a myriad of racially motivated attacks on Blacks by white civilians and law enforcement officers alike.
Donald Trump said the Mizzou protesters were “disgusting” and called the system president’s decision to step down “weak.” While he and others who are part of the 1 percent may think so, they had to respect the power and organizational skills of the protesters, who put it all on the line to make sure their voice was heard by the powers that be. Since money still talks, they won the battle but the war is far from over.
Like many others, I am inspired by the student protesters at Mizzou and their willingness to take on a “Goliath” in the name of equity, fairness and justice.
We can no longer say that there aren’t young people today who don’t care about anything but their personal wants and needs. These brave souls banded together for a higher purpose and should be commended.
While it’s clear that the more things change, the more they stay the same, it’s also clear that without any protracted struggle there will be no significant change or progress.
All power to the people.
This article originally published in the November 16, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
