Posted on 11/09/2015 11:01:25 AM PST by campg
Last Thursday night, more than 100 community members gathered at the Waterloo Center for the Arts for a panel discussion of Racial Justice. The forum engaged the philosophy behind the Black Lives Matter movement and discussed the system of racial injustice here in the Cedar Valley and in the nation. Panel members included the Reverend Abraham Funchess, the Reverend Belinda Creighton-Smith, the Reverend Mary E. Robinson, Public Defender Aaron Hawbaker, and Chief Dan Trelka.
As panelists eloquently explained, the Black Lives Matter movement is about reasserting the inherent dignity and respect of a group of people who have been diminished and degraded by our culture and society. One audience member noted that when some counter the Black Lives Matter movement with the statement that “All Lives Matter†we erase the racial injustice that Black people experience and lose the opportunity to engage one of the most enduring problems that confronts us as a nation, the problem, as W.E.B. DuBois put it over one hundred years ago, of the color line. The forum was ably moderated by Al Hays, President of the Cedar Valley Unitarian Universalist Board of Trustees.
The problem of the color line – the systemic degradation and segregation of Black people in the United States – seems intractable. Forums like this have been held periodically, yet nothing really seems to change. What are the leverage points that influence a system? How can the work of race relations and racial justice be expanded to engage a broader community? How can those who live lives of privilege and power acknowledge complicity in and indeed responsibility for a system that diminishes others? These were some of the questions that were raised and debated at this important forum – a forum that served as the beginning of a dialogue that must continue for change to take hold.
At the same time as the forum was happening in Waterloo, students on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa were sharing their own experiences of discrimination and disempowerment. Students expressed their hurt, their fears, and their frustration at a system that, for them, silences their voices and disallows any type of meaningful change. As an academic administrator at the university, I have had the opportunity to get to know some of these students. When I hear about their struggles I am filled with a deep and abiding sadness; I am reminded of my own complicity in our systems and my responsibility to engage these important issues.
Ultimately an institution of higher education must create and then nurture a culture that makes certain that all voices are heard and that all problems—including issues of racial injustice—are surfaced and engaged. Clearly, the administration needs to work harder to make certain that such a culture exists and all students feel embraced. In some sense, our efforts have been cosmetic, not systemic, and so we are the ones, ultimately, who must take responsibility for this continued failure and provide leadership to create a campus that embraces diverse individuals, perspectives, and ways of being in the world.
Can the University and the broader Cedar Valley community do better? Do we have the will to make deep lasting changes that embrace differences in ways that enrich all of our lives? These are questions that must be asked, and asked again, so that we know, forthrightly and honestly, what we value, what we envision for our future, and why our individual and collective work matters. And then we must act to break free of the patterns of injustice that stifle the full potential of our communities.
We need a lot more Booker T. Washington and a lot less W.E.B. DuBois ...
These whitey-blaming progressives are the worst kind of racists. The cloak their racism in a mantle of righteousness, all the while keeping the black man on the plantation and depicting all whites as racist.
It’s not only racist; it’s outright evil.
Scurrilous Commentary by Fred Reed
It is curious that blacks, the least educated thirteen percent of the population, the least productive, most criminal, and most dependent on governmental charity, should dominate national politics. Yet they do. Virtually everything revolves around what blacks want, demand, do, or can't do. Their power seems without limit.
Courses of instruction in the schools, academic rigor, codes of dress, rules regarding unceasing obscenity, all must be set to suit them, as must be examinations for promotion in fire departments, the military, and police forces. Blacks must be admitted to universities for which they are not remotely qualified, where departments of Black Studies must be established to please them. Corporate work forces, federal departments, and elite high-schools must be judged not on whether they perform their functions but on whether they have the right number of blacks.
READ MORE HERE:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/BlackPower.shtml
“We must do more to address racial injustice” translation: We want more money from the Gov’t.
“We” must? Why does that always translate into “you” must?
Those are the same book aren’t they?
One’s paperback and the other is a bound book...
I just picked up the Kindle version for $0.99 cents.
Thought others might find that in the unable to pass up category.
The second one, the paperback, I believe, has additions that the hardback doesn’t.
Okay, I’ll pick that up also then. Thanks.
No you don't. You libtards are so obsessed with collectivism and that you are unable to function without divisiveness and group warfare.
FYI: Tried to buy the second one and it informed me I’d already bought that title... sale didn’t go through.
I used your link to Amazon. Am I misunderstanding your intent?
No, I just thought you might have found a different location with a better deal.
Why don’t you just grow up and quit acting like an idiot.
Everybody needs to be taught Ebonics.
I admire Booker T Washington and Washington Carver very much.
In their day they found a way to excel. In our day, so many can't won't.
I grew up two miles from George Washington Carver's childhood farm in Missouri. I've walked it a number of times.
No, Amazon is selling it cheap right now. Pleasant surprise...
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