The University of Missouri is just 115 miles away from Ferguson, Missouri, and it seems like the racial tensions have spread down I-70. This past week, the entire university turned its attention to the issue of racism on campus.
The Mizzou football team brought national attention to the college when they threatened to boycott all football activities if school president Tim Wolfe continued to hold his position. Subsequently, teachers organized walk-outs, students planned protests, and university operations came to a screeching halt. Wolfe originally refused to resign, but gave up his job on Monday morning after it became clear that his presence would cause endless turmoil at the school.
What, though, put the student body so squarely against their administrator? What made Tim Wolfe enemy number 1 in a way that meant that he had to be removed?
Over the last few months, there have been three high-profile examples of racism and hostile prejudice that have plagued the university. Wolfe, according to many, did not act swiftly enough, nor take the issues seriously enough, and thus became part of the problem, rather than part of the much needed solution.
I love that the football team took a stance against something. I love that they used their high-profile, often celebrity status to call attention to an issue of public importance, and call for action by saying that this issue is bigger than football. That being said, this protest made a critical error that will dramatically handicap its ability to actually fix any kind of problem.
By setting Wolfe as the center of the issue and the condition upon the return to normal college life, the focus becomes his resignation, rather than the elimination of the racism that sparked the problem in the first place. As soon as Wolfe resigned on Monday, classes resumed, the football team went back to practice, and the public attention to the school and their movement turned their focus elsewhere. Nothing actually changed in terms of race relations. Nothing changed in terms of creating a more inclusive and educational community. Sure, there will continue to be some protests by student organizations and the particularly inspired, but, for the most part, nobody will be paying attention a week from now.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether Tim Wolfe was a bad guy in this situation, or simply a decent man who got caught up not doing enough to help the growing tensions at his university. In either condition, the football team and the student body would have been much better off focusing the national attention on the actual issue of racism itself, rather than on a member of the administration.
When creating any social movement for change, it is impossible to be truly effective if the issue centers around any one individual. When that one individual goes away, whether a leader or a villain, the movement crumbles altogether, and prevents any ability for future action. In this case, we were so focused on whether or not the school president resigned that we failed to make any kind of substantive change to the racial climate of the university.
There is so much work to be done in terms of racial issues in our country. The experience of minorities in America just isn’t acceptable anymore, and we need to be doing more to be able to eliminate racism, both in the inter-personal form of racism, as well as institutional racism.
The University of Missouri did a big thing in saying that they will not accept Tim Wolfe’s handling of the situation over the last few months. In doing so, though, the focus was put on the wrong issue, and now we all have to figure out what to do when, in a day or two, the national attention will be gone, and we won’t have been able to do anything to substantively change the experience for African American students, frankly, any students, on campus.
We need to do something to fix the problem of racial tension that exists in this country. In many ways, it is good to see that the public is working to make something happen. The next step is to begin to be more thoughtful about the ways we bring attention to the important issues, and how to motivate the greatest and most effective form of change.
If you enjoy the work of the Zoot Perspective, please visit my GoFundMe page, to help support me on my journey. Thank you very much.
No comments:
Post a Comment