The University of Mississippi is FAILING its Black Students
It's February 21, 2019.
It is 2019, 154 years after the abolition of slavery (the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865), 55 years after desegregation (the Civil Rights Act of 1964), and it's officially Black History Month - yet a college/university in Oxford, MS willingly neglects to stand up for its Black students. I'm sure this doesn't sound surprising for many with the buzzwords "Black" and "Mississippi". But let me explain the situation in full before you allow yourself to desensitize or normalize what you just read.
Two groups calling themselves "pro-Confederate" (an obvious political facade for supporters of the KKK philosophy) have publicly announced that they will rally on the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, MS. This rally was decided on in retaliation to ongoing student-protesting against the Confederate symbols that are still present at the university. It is also public knowledge (or rumor, same thing) that they will possibly be armed since concealed carry is legal.
Many are arguing for freedom of speech and the fact that the university is a public campus, so nothing can be done to stop these two groups from exercising their right. While both of the aforementioned facts are true, let me just stop all of you there. Let's use hypotheticals since that's the only way some people are able to see the clear difference between human hatred vs. human decency. Some of you have to be able to relate and see yourself in a situation for it to be valid (but we’ll unpack that another time).
Let's say a person "freely" calls to say that they will bomb the university - what do you think will happen? Technically, the person hasn't committed a crime, right? So nothing can be done. WRONG, the authorities would be using every single piece of technology available to trace the call and apprehend whoever stated it, look for evidence of a bomb EVERYWHERE on campus, call for an official evacuation of all students and personnel on campus until it is confirmed that the danger has passed, release statements to the press because mommies and daddies and families are worried, and all hell would break loose! So apparently something can be done when no crime has been committed but has the potential to destroy lives.
So to every university advising their students to stay away from protesters - I'm telling all of you to cut the political crap and act to protect your students. You're uncomfortable with acknowledging that racists carrying weapons on a university campus need to stay away from your student body, but you're not uncomfortable with the highly emotional, possibly armed presence of visitors...because you’re not in danger, Black people are.
Let’s imagine that there’s absolutely nothing that can be done about the visitors showing up. Cool, what can you control? Before you say nothing, I came up with 5 things you can do in like 20 minutes. So I’m sure you can come up with something before this Saturday, February 23, 2019.
Here's your starter guide to "How to Stop Racists from Endangering Your Students". Free of charge.
support evacuation of any students who feel unsafe with the coming visitors
provide escorts to any students who feel unsafe with the coming visitors.
"police" the coming visitors or check that they are, in fact, unarmed (esp. since you say this is not allowed)
reassure everyone publicly that your priority is the safety of every single student on your campus (instead of silence)
take responsibility for the issue (even if you aren't the one doing the "rallying") since it involves lives on your campus
Likely someone will argue that this is no longer a problem since weather will possibly prohibit the groups from gathering. However, this is not the first racist, extremist gathering on the public campus of a college/university and it will not be the last. So I charge you to hold your universities accountable for coming up with an ACTION plan to protect the students that pay their time, money, and energy to it. Show appreciation and respect for human life over your comfort zone of complicity and silent. Tell other white people to stop upholding racism — period.
