Author: rshah

On most white-dominated college campuses, there is always the issue of the lack of diversity among the student body. The University of Missouri is one of them that has been in the headlines recently. The school has been put under fire after not taking any action against the extreme racial tensions that occur in everyday life between the white and black students and faculty of the university. The University of Missouri has been put under the spotlight by being used as an example on how college racism is becoming a huge issue and hasn’t changed much since the civil rights era.

In some ways, the grievances of black students mirror those of other campuses across the country. The black students almost always felt as if they were being judged by the color of their skin. One student puts it, “It can be exhausting when people are making assumptions about you based on the color of your skin. I can be exhausting to feel like you have to speak for your entire race. It’s so exhausting that on some mornings I ask myself if I want to go to class and sit with people.” These young black college students are not only dealing with the harassment on campus but also via social media such as Yik Yak. Yik Yak is a commonly used app that lets users post statuses and comments anonymously within a one mile radius of the user. At the University of Missouri, racial threats against certain students so bad that students felt unsafe to walk on campus, afraid that they will be attacked physically and/or sexually. These students feel a sense of cultural isolation and feel harshly judged 24/7. There have been racial threats made via social media against these students. The university, specifically the university president, has been criticized for being slow and ineffective in addressing these racial tensions. The university president brushed this under the rug and the students are not happy. As a result of their frustration the students formed a group called the Concerned Student 1950 and protested against the school. The group was named after the year that African-Americans were admitted to the university.

According to the article, “Both blacks and whites are clearly underrepresented at the university compared to the demographics of the entire state. Eight percent of the students are black while nearly eighty percent are white compared to about eighty-four percent of the state.” Academic outcomes have also been unequal. “83% of black freshmen return for their sophomore year, nearly 88% of whites and 94% of Asians do. And black students have the lowest graduation rate of all races, less than 55%, compared with 71% for whites”.

Soon universities and colleges across the country united with the students at the University of Missouri. We notice the injustices that are occurring to people just like us. We notice what is right and wrong. We notice the grievances that young people just like us are going through on a daily basis and how the administrative power is doing absolutely nothing about it. Instead of going the violent route to be heard, students at the university and other universities around the nation are using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Yik Yak, etc) to let their voices be heard for these injustices to come to an end once and for all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/us/university-of-missouri-protests.html?_r=0

In this day and age, it seems like there has been no change on the issue of brutality against black Americans since the Civil Rights era. With the deaths of Trayvonn Martin and Michael Brown, there has been a rise in what is now known as the “Black Lives Matter” movement. This first came about as a hashtag on social media as a way to protest the injustice of the young black men that were murdered. But it has now become a symbol of the violent injustice that black Americans face on a daily basis. According to the New York Times, the demonstrators that are protesting in the streets “…are not asserting that black lives are more precious of white lives. They are underlying the fact that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered and have been discounted and devalued”.

In April of 2015, a man by the name of Freddie Gray was arrested in Baltimore. He was perfectly healthy at the time of his arrest but sustained injuries to his neck and spine while being transported. He was left in a coma and then died a week later. Violent but organized protests broke out on the streets of Baltimore when it became publicly known  the cause of Gray’s death. This created civil unrest and the riots took over the city. This is an example of breakdown theory. Useem states that breakdown theory is “the classic sociological explanation of contentious forms of collective action such as riots, rebellions and civil violence and these events occur when the mechanisms of social control lose their restraining power” (217). Simply put, breakdown theory is the breakdown of social control. It’s spurred by emotion when injustice occurs. The residents of Baltimore were thinking that “there is no legitimate way I can act and I’ve gotten to a breaking point so I get on the streets and act in emotion”.

The media and government officials portray the same violent acts among whites and blacks as exact opposites. A quote by Juan Thompson explains this well by stating that “when white people spread chaos in the streets, they are drunks that make drunken mistakes; when black people act in justifiable rage after decades of oppression, they are depicted as violent and imitating agitators”. The mayor of Baltimore, who is a black female, called the residents that were protesting in the street as “hooligans”.

The Black Lives Matter movement has become very similar to the Civil Rights movement. We still have not achieved racial equality when it comes to the black community. There has been an increasing number of police brutality against young black people. Just recently, there was a video circulating online of a police officer dragging and beating a young black girl out of her seat in a classroom and arresting her on the charge of resisting arrest. A black UVA student was recently beaten to death by police outside of a bar that was off campus. This is an epidemic that needs to stop. We almost always judge a book by its cover and we shouldn’t sterotype someone based on the color of their skin.

Works Cited:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/opinion/the-truth-of-black-lives-matter.html?_r=0

http://cmtypwr.lesliemartin.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Useem-breakdown.pdf