“Home to more than 30,000 students and some of the nation's top scholars and researchers, the University of Iowa offers more than 200 areas of study on a vibrant and diverse campus”
There exists an experience on this campus which, despite the cheerful and pluralistic rhetoric that its administration is so fond of, happens to be marked by struggle, depression, and isolation. To be a Black Hawkeye is to be pushed into the margins, vulnerable to psychological violence, tokenized, forgotten, exploited, and – in times of resistance – co-opted and quarantined. Experiences evidenced by the defense of KKK effigies and disconcern with exacerbated graduation and retention gaps, among other things. There is perhaps no more recent an example of this than in the case of the Young, Gifted and Black LLC which black students designed and proposed to the University this summer. In the University’s inability (or unwillingness) to protect its black students from harassment, bias, and discrimination in the Residence Halls came also an inability to recognize that students have more than majors: they have heritages and histories. From this deficiency came a ray of brilliance: Black students at the University decided they’d had enough and drew up a proposal for a Black LLC which would not only celebrate Blackness, but would provide black students with an environment for success at a PWI. Unfortunately, on par with history, from the moment it reached the proverbial hands of the administration the long tedious hours of hard work on this proposal became co-opted and whitewashed for mainstream liberalism. Not only effectively erasing the efforts of marginalized students from the narrative, but also making their work ineffectual. The Young Gifted and Black LLC will only provide justice if adhered to in its purest form. Anything less is a wash.
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October 2018
Matt BruceViva DSM!! |