BY CORBIN MCGUIRE, OPINIONS EDITOR
Following the resignation of the president and chancellor at the University of Missouri and a campus-wide alert issued to Mizzou students in response to racist threats on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak, Bellarmine University students were taken back to similar events on this campus on the evening of Late Knight Breakfast in December 2014.
“Between Mike Brown and Black Lives Matter in Ferguson heating up, Eric Garner’s killer facing no indictment, and all the others, I was feeling upset and helpless, both because of the terror black people were facing and the fact that no one at Bellarmine seemed to have to care about it,” said Bellarmine graduate and former Black Student Union (BSU) member Kim Jackson.
During the event, Bellarmine’s BSU conducted a demonstration and moment of silence in the University Dining Hall (UDH).
What came after included a series of death threats and racist remarks from fellow students on Yik Yak.
Bellarmine graduate and former BSU president Cierra Williams said: “I have gotten the threats, been followed and had security escort me because I have felt so unsafe. I have experienced exactly what they are feeling. It is not just Mizzou; it is every predominately white institution (PWI) in this country. These are not small isolated incidents.”
This bit of déjà vu was furthered by an email sent out by Bellarmine University President Joseph McGowan, which contained the “Faculty Council Statement of Appreciation of the Black Student Union,” on Nov. 2, a week prior to Mizzou President Tim Wolfe’s resignation.
The statement thanked BSU “for its ongoing commitment to improving the climate of Bellarmine University” and acknowledged that the “members of the Black Student Union have experienced subtle aggression and even overt hostility” following their efforts on campus.
This long-awaited email to Bellarmine students and faculty came only days after University of Cincinnati President Santa J. Ono’s email to the university’s students that called recent comments made on Yik Yak toward UC students participating in the dialogue led by the #Irate8, a student activist organization, “highly insensitive and racially charged.”
Ono went on to state that he has asked for an immediate investigation of a particularly offensive post.
No similar investigation of the comments made towards the students of BSU was made public.
With such strong responses to racism toward students on campuses so close to Bellarmine, a necessary question to ask is what we as a community have done to improve our university for students of color and more importantly, how willing we are to acknowledge that for these students, racism on our campuses is still a problem.
Sophomore BSU member Haley Landre said: “Although everything happening at Mizzou is horrible and disgusting, racism at PWIs is rampant and is a fragment of the systematic racism that’s within America as a country. If you need proof, look at incidents at Yale, Texas A&M, Alabama U, and the University of Louisville.”
It is no question that recent events at schools like Mizzou are not unique, but they are good examples of what could happen at Bellarmine if racism on campus is not taken seriously.
Students should not be afraid to exist on their own college campus and for members of BSU, this was a reality following Late Knight Breakfast.
Williams said: “I remember it became so bad at one point I literally packed my room, called home and told my mom I couldn›t do it anymore. I wanted to leave so badly, but she wouldn’t allow me to because she knew if I gave up they would have won yet again, so I kept going. Being this tired and still trying to achieve at an academically rough school is draining, and that’s what we had to deal with every day.”
While Yik Yak is now known as a platform on which many anonymous threats are made, these issues do not end when one logs off social media.
Dr. Matissa Wilbon, the Faculty Council president and professor for the race and ethnicity course offered at Bellarmine, offered a faculty perspective on the issue.
“It is not just Yik Yak conversations; it is feeling targeted in the classroom. And it is not about laying blame. We’re all in this together and until we see it thatway, I don’t think there’s going to be the change that we want,” said Wilbon.
It is important that the Bellarmine community as a whole, not just the Faculty Council, takes a stand with minority students in times of injustice.
An absence of solidarity in times like these leads to greater misunderstandings and even more violence.
If action isn’t taken, students will lose faith in their university in times of need.
For students like Landre, Wilbon’s classroom has been a place of education and solace.
“The only time that I have ever felt like I have had a meaningful discussion about race on campus is in my race and ethnicity class,” Landre said. “If this class was a general education requirement instead of history maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with things that I’ve had to.”
If Bellarmine’s campus climate is to improve, courses on race and ethnicity must be a required piece of the curriculum, efforts to hire more diverse faculty members should be increased and the safety of minority students must be prioritized
“We can have difficult, challenging conversations about issues like race. When you have diversity of folks, it brings in a diversity of experiences, it brings diversity of perspective,” Wilbon said.
Respect is due to students who fill the campus with new ideas, unique practices, and diverse backgrounds.
Expressions of solidarity are important, but the students of BSU deserve more from the community they have enriched with their willingness to take a stand.
Some of the Yaks posted anonymously following
the Black Student Union’s peaceful demonstration at Late Knight
Breakfast. Photos courtesy of Haley Landre.