EDITORIAL: Invalidating others' experiences halts social progress
A recent survey of minority students and faculty revealed a significant number of people of color say they experience racism and discrimination on campus and in Mount Pleasant.
Minority students make up a small number of the students attending Central Michigan University. Only 3,267 of 19,549 on-campus students identify as belonging to a minority group. Out of nearly 1,000 faculty members, only 190 identify as belonging to a minority group.
According to the 2015 survey of minority students, nearly 50 percent said they have seen evidence of racism in Mount Pleasant. Another 40 percent said racism exists on campus.
While the survey responses should give us concern, the personal accounts of your peers bring a real, honest perspective to these issues. In the days following our reporting, a growing conversation about the prejudice that exists in our community was met with sadness and outrage. Most telling, however, was the ignorance of these very real concerns.
It is easy, even convenient, to assert that the negative experiences of the survey participants are isolated anecdotes. We encourage university and community residents to take these concerns seriously. Minority groups in Mount Pleasant are a present and vocal demographic that should not be ignored. We will continue to give voice to the issues that are brought forward.
Because 84 percent of the student body is white, microaggressions and institutional discrimination can come from students and professors who haven't had much experience with other races and are unaware their actions or comments offend.
Though society has become more progressive in acknowledging its unenlightened past, the fight against racism is not over especially at our university. In 1993, men's basketball coach Keith Dambrot was fired for using a racial slur in a halftime speech during a game against Miami University.
Dambrot addressed his team — made up of 11 black players and three whites — stating that they needed to play harder, “like n----rs.” His comments resulted in on-campus protests. Dambrot was fired by the university because "public reaction to the incident had created an environment that makes it impossible for the university to conduct a viable basketball program under his leadership."
In 2007, a student found four nooses in a classroom in the Engineering and Technology Building, which led to a painstaking eight-month federal investigation. The Isabella County Prosecutor filed no charges in the incident, but the damage caused by racist iconography had already been done.
More recently, a 2012 study commissioned by the Isabella County Human Rights Committee showed systemic issues with racism, bias and harmful behavior between between Native Americans and others in the community.
The surveys referenced Monday in Central Michigan Life were preceded by research conducted in 2007 and 2010. That research resulted in similar conclusions about the university having a hostile environment toward students of color.
The anecdotes of faculty and students in the 2015 report are a reaffirmation of these facts. Ignoring the evidence does not solve the problem. Racism will not go away without reasonable and open-minded conversation.
Don't step on the personal experiences that have been made public. Ignoring the evidence will not solve the problem.
The first reaction of some commenters on Central Michigan Life's Facebook page was to ridicule stories of discrimination, discrediting the validity of this evidence. The only people who can decide if racism is “real” are those who experience its affects. If we try to silence the voices of people of color, we accommodate discrimination and racism.
Let’s be the last generation that say we were here when Central Michigan University was divided by race. Now that the discussion has been opened, let's use this opportunity to make real change happen.
