Thursday, March 28, 2024

Students and faculty take action for the #BlackLivesMatter campaign

Many students and faculty took campus by storm recently with multiple die-ins and marches in response to various national cases pertaining to police brutality against black males

January 19, 2015
<p>International Relations senior, Eric Savoie, listens to a Physics junior, Kurt Hamel Jan. 15, 2015, during a meeting at Wells Hall. Students of several activist groups on campus gathered to discuss current issues in promoting their cause and future plans to promote change on campus. Kennedy Thatch/The State News</p>

International Relations senior, Eric Savoie, listens to a Physics junior, Kurt Hamel Jan. 15, 2015, during a meeting at Wells Hall. Students of several activist groups on campus gathered to discuss current issues in promoting their cause and future plans to promote change on campus. Kennedy Thatch/The State News

Photo by Kennedy Thatch | The State News

After journalism senior Tyler Clifford heard there would be no indictment in the Eric Garner case, he was inspired to act on campus. Clifford is president of Zeta Delta, MSU’s chapter Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc. and is also involved with NAACP.

“I thought it was important to let people know that something needs to change,” Clifford said. “That there is something that we can do in East Lansing to make sure something like that doesn’t happen here. That was just the start of it.”

Early last December, after what they believed were displays of injustice and police brutality against black males in America, some MSU students took action.

Students went as far as physically lying down in traffic on Grand River Avenue, holding die-ins at the Main Library, and protesting and marching on campus. Whether silent or chanting, these students were determined to be heard.

Clifford said the sole purpose of the marches was to bring awareness of these issues around campus. They wanted to create a voice for the voiceless.

Electrical engineering senior Keyon Clinton said the first thing that comes to mind when he hears “Black Lives Matter” is concern on a local level, pertaining to East Lansing. But he said he does believe that it extends to a national level.

“On a higher level with America, in terms of black human rights and being able to express ourselves through our own culture without being judged or criticized because it’s different from other cultures,” Clinton said.

Importance on campus

Activism within a university’s student body isn’t something new.

“The majority of the great leaders we read about were college students,” Clinton said. “It’s up to us as leaders to understand we hold the power to create change, but we have (to be) congruent with our efforts.”

After die-ins in the Main Library during finals week and lie-ins on Grand River Avenue during a basketball game, some people may have felt the protests were an inconvenience because of the huge public disturbances to studying and driving.

“In order to be successful in a protest and create change, you have to inconvenience others,” Clifford said.

These events relate back to the famous Oklahoma City and Greensboro sit-ins that were held by activists in the 1960s. Sit-ins were a tactic used by nonviolent students against segregation.

“Student mobilization and activism have always been prevalent in collegiate spaces,” journalism senior and Black Student Alliance president Rashad Timmons said. “Those things have always propelled the social, political and academic sphere of universities.”

Receiving the message

For some people, when they hear or see the message “Black Lives Matter” they may think these words are synonymous with “Only Black Lives Matter.”

Clinton said this is the wrong approach.

“There’s never been anywhere in history ... just one race benefiting from a revolution. The only way we can rise and unite and create solidarity is if we come together and do it as one.”

Clinton is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers and National Society of Collegiate Scholars. He said he is trying to pursue what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proposed to us — all races coming together.

“I think sometimes these movements are a disadvantage because we’re speaking out of rage and emotion as opposed to logic and rationality,” Clinton said. “So once we learn to approach our issues and concerns in a positive reinforcement than we can understand that we need allies to help us reach those goals. And with their culture we have to accept them as much as we want them to accept us.”

Clinton also said that from his viewpoint, it is more difficult for the movement of Black Lives Matter to be understood on campus then at home.

Hailing from his hometown of Detroit, Clinton said everyone is going through the same struggle, as opposed to MSU where it is a very diverse community. That diversity is great, he said, but it can have its pros and cons.

“Some of the cons being other students don’t understand the privilege they have just by being Caucasian or another race,” Clinton said. “Some prejudices that we have to deal with and the adversity we have to overcome to get just as far.”

“Also, when you look at (the) administration and who holds the power and how much they are listening to the students and actually having their hands-on as opposed to just listening. I think that’s why it’s a bit harder,” he said.

Journalism professor Folu Ogundimu was one of several members of the MSU faculty who signed an open letter of love to black students, written by MSU English professor Rae Paris.

The point of the letter was to build solidarity with the nationwide concern for what is happening with regard to the hardships young black students, and black males in particular, face.

“It’s very unfortunate that we have to write letters like this once in a while to draw attention to the fact that black lives matter and African lives matter — all lives matter,” Ogundimu said. “All human rights matter, we shouldn’t have to draw attention to these problems.”

Ogundimu also said people of all races and origins should step up to show support for the Black Lives Matter cause.

“It shouldn’t just be black people signing letters today, it should be everybody,” Ogundimu said. “We should all demonstrate this kind of solidarity and sensitivity. So it really pains me when I see this kind of division.”

Ogundimu also said it’s unfortunate that a law enforcement and judicial process we all count on to ensure that justice is rendered might instill fear in some situations.

“Any one of us can be victims and that’s unfortunate,” Ogundimu said. “It shouldn’t happen in America, but that’s why we have to draw attention to these issues by writing a letter that raises these concerns.”

Moving forward

Sociology and journalism senior Kenya Abbott Jr. is a part of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and involved in the department of African American and African studies. Abbott said the movements on campus are a source of information.

Abbott added she would like for students from many other movements to consolidate.

“Something I would like to see is a proactive stance of students,” Abbott said. “One thing that I do notice is a lot of students fighting for something or some type of social justice issue that matters to them. From an MSU perspective I would like to see students coming together and showing how these different issues affect all the same thing.”

Clifford and Clinton plan to solve things as a community.

Clifford said he wants to hold town hall meetings where East Lansing and Lansing police officers are present as well as MSU students. These meetings would set a foundation of understanding for each to understand the other’s perspective.

Clinton said he is in the process of making connections with an organization in Lansing that holds town hall meetings so they and MSU students can all be inclusive with each other. He said that town hall meetings would be held with every black organization on campus. That way it won’t be held by a specific organization, but instead, by the student body.

“Not only am I trying to bring the MSU students together, but the Lansing community as well because they have multiple resources that we can benefit from and vise versa,” Clinton said.

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