Last Tuesday, Feb. 27, the Black Student Union (BSU) hosted their third annual Town Hall on Race. Held in Common Grounds, this event brings students together in a conversation on race, how it impacts relationships and experiences on campus, and thoughts on how to change these for the better.
This year’s theme was “Be Woke, Stay Woke.”
Led by senior Tae Dews and first-years Theo Jackson and JD Richardson — all active members of the BSU — small groups held discussions on three topics: the impact of cultural blindness, the impact of being and staying woke, and restoration and healing.
Richardson spoke about an experience he had with cultural blindness. As a fifth grader, he and his family moved from Chicago to Tomah, Wis., a rural, very white town. “I walked in the class for the first time and I saw nothing but white kids. At that point, that’s when I knew … I was somebody different,” Richardson said. “I’m outside, playing by myself, and one kid came by and said, ‘Why are your hands white?’ … I finally realized that these kids have never seen a black person in their life, so I’m like, ‘Okay, how can I go about this? Can I be upset and be that angry black man that they want me to be, or can I educate them and let them see the way that I see?’” Continuing, he emphasized that education, not retaliation, is the way to heal and restore.
Jackson told about his first impressions of social justice at EMU. During admissions, something Jackson said was “talked about a lot and advertised a lot was the diversity of the student population and the emphasis placed on social justice.” He added, “I found out when I got here… that that didn’t really accurately reflect what living on campus was like. … I’m a little embarrassed [to tell] people EMU is passionate about social justice, really not experiencing that much.” He challenged the audience to ask how EMU could show a real passion for social justice. “How can we keep EMU in the next hundred years from having students come and be disappointed?”
In the following discussions, the sentiment held true that EMU wants a movement toward social justice, but fails to take the actual steps.
This view was new to some participants, such as junior Emma Stutzman, who said she was amazed at how many people see it that way. “I feel like I’m blind to a lot of [this view]. I feel like I’m very easily impressed by all the discussions that EMU has,” she said. “It makes me feel a little naïve to get to something like this and realize that… I’m very unaware of people being treated unfairly because of their race.”
On the use of the word “race,” Dews said, “This idea of race is a social construct… Ethnicity is the acknowledgement that we come from different backgrounds … but race was something that was made by humans to determine difference.” Dews would like to start “an awareness that we stop using race to define who we are, because biologically, we’re all one race, the human race.”
Dews also issued a challenge: for people to “dig into what their moral standings are. Why do you have the beliefs that you have and how are they affecting the community that you’re in? Are they hindering or are they helping?”
Several groups expressed the hope that this event would have lasting effects. First-year Kaitlyn Dallasta said, “It definitely changed how I think about certain things.” Junior Sarah Beth Ranck said, “I hope that the conversations can continue and things can come out of it. [My group talked about] the idea of staying woke, as in we’re never fully woke, and I think that’s something important for me to remember. How can I continually be woke?”
