Racism 101: How to Instill Anger
The following is an editorial written by Dennis Shiraev ’12, Editor-in-Chief, and Oliver Renick ’12, Executive Editor. It will appear in the semester’s final issue of The Cornell Review, which hits newsstands Wednesday.
During a protest by Africana Center supporters on Friday, one African-American graduate student took the microphone and told the crowd bluntly: “[I am] not going to be forced to go into buildings with pictures of people who do not look like me.”
In an attempt to express her anger about the Africana program being merged into the College of Arts & Sciences, she exemplified the same intolerant philosophy that caused restaurant and store owners in the 1960s to hang ‘no blacks’ signs on their front doors.
Racism is alive and well at Cornell University.
In the spring of 2009 the Program House community erupted over the administration’s routine fiscal review of the program. This marked the first step in an ongoing series of events created by Cornell’s most vocal minority representatives that has created feelings of anger, betrayal, and prejudice on campus. After administrators repeatedly assured that the Program Houses were not at any kind of risk, members of Ujamaa, Black Students United, Latino Living Center, and the LGBT community continued to falsely claim that the University was trying to get rid of ‘safe spaces’ at Cornell.
Again, in the fall of 2009, the Program House leaders injected racial tension into the community when American Indian students and faculty at Akwe:kon circulated an email with hurtful statements about Europeans and linked to a website supporting the release of convicted murderers and terrorists.
The trend was continued last month when Ujamaa and Black Students United hosted a Unity Hour where students and professors held a conference call with convicted cop-killer Eddie Conway. Those leading the event introduced Conway as a political prisoner who had the misfortune of being a black man targeted by a justice system – run by whites – that targets the African-American community. The event contributed nothing positive to race relations on campus.
The Program House community’s efforts to paint itself as the victim culminated this week after the University announced that the Africana Research and Studies Center would come under the wing of Arts & Sciences. The Africana Center is currently operated under the supervision of the Provost’s office. Like a moth to the light, ex-Ujamaa RHD Ken Glover led his team of radical activists from the Program Houses to shout cries of racism and bigotry on the steps of Day Hall.
While claiming to protest against the ‘lack of dialogue’ between the University and Africana, students and faculty members fired one epithet after another. Ken Glover claimed the move was based on “white supremacy.” Prof. N’Dri T. Assié-Lumumba, advisor to Black Students United, called the move “institutional racism.” Robert Harris Jr., Director of the Africana Center, further isolated the Black community from the greater student body by saying, “We don’t need [the administration’s] help.”
If this is their idea of dialogue, silence is golden. But could they be right?
Provost Fuchs noted that the move would not diminish the Center’s autonomy – since it is already operated under the supervision of the Provost’s office – and would actually increase the resources available for students and faculty.
But this reorganization is by no means unique. Many departments have been faced with restructuring or budget cuts since the university’s endowment took a massive hit in 2008. In early 2009 the University announced its plans to discontinue the entire Swedish and Dutch language programs. Then in February 2010 the administration announced significant cuts to the Theatre, Film, and Dance department—cuts that led to the elimination of multiple faculty positions. Later that spring the Russian Department came under scrutiny when the administration announced plans to eliminate the Russian major and merge the department with Comparative Literature. But the budget cuts were not confined to small departments. Earlier this year the administration announced plans to cut four of seven assistant professors’ positions in the Math department.
In every instance, vocal students and faculty members raised concerns about both the lack of dialogue that went into the university’s decisions and the crippling effects the cut would have on their departments. Nancy Pollak, chair of the Russian department, was quoted in the Daily Sun as saying, “We [the Russian faculty] were not presented with the idea — as far as I know — of suspending the Russian department or getting rid of the Russian major…” Professor Tara Holm, Math, voiced her concerns in an email to the administration in which she emphasized that the cuts would severely impact the level of instruction that students received as well as the overall competitiveness of the department. After the administration announced cuts to the Theatre, Film, and Dance department, one student was quoted in the Daily Sun as being “shocked at the news” of the proposed cuts.
The speakers at Friday’s Day Hall rally were right about one thing: the Africana decision has indeed proved to be distinct from the other restructurings. Unlike the representatives from any of the other departments, those from the Africana Center instead decided to take an unmistakably racial tone.
Glover characterized the decision as being about “control, money, power, and domination.” The same grad student who conjured memories of pre-Civil rights segregation added that the move was “about getting rid of black people from this campus.” She aptly noted that she discouraged her friends from applying to Cornell.
Vitriolic and hateful speech that so frequently emanates from the teachers and leaders of our students is an embarrassment to Cornell. The continuous efforts to mislead the public are a stain on an institution that goes to great lengths to accommodate the needs of students from every background.
Ken Glover’s racist comments and Robert Harris’s declarations of “systemic racism” are shameful remarks and a disgrace to minorities at Cornell who choose not to marginalize themselves by the color of their skin. As student representatives of the Program Houses continually echo the cowardly sentiments of leaders like Harris and Glover, a much more significant and time-sensitive issue is illuminated.
As long as the University allows ideologically dangerous people such as Glover to lead our students in both academic and personal settings, animosity between different cultures and racial tension will continue to build on campus. It has been this editorial board’s stance that the most rampant form of racism today is the creation of fear and accusations of racism where it does not exist. We call upon our readers, our colleagues at The Daily Sun and The Cornell Progressive, and Cornell’s administrators to take a stand against the discriminatory behavior exhibited at Friday’s Day Hall Protest. Until students and administrators have the courage to stand up to bigotry in public forums, the integrity of Cornell’s student body is at stake.
