Today, unlike the rest of the semester, however, speaking to the class will be their graduate level associate instructors. A group of three men and one women who resemble the diverse make up of the class (a stark difference from the average professor at a large, public Midwest research university: an old Caucasion male) approach the front of the room and begin a series of presentations on protests, revolts, rallies, and rebellions.
As the final instructor approaches the lecturn to finish off of the four presentation, he asks one hundred students to stand up. Four students are given directions to yell the word ‘left’, another four students are instructed to yell ‘right’, and yet another four students are told to shout the word ‘up’, while the rest of the 88 students are instructed to yell the school’s colors, and all are instructed to do so at the specified time. On the count of three everyone shouts. None of the students left in the crowd could here the words ‘up’, ‘left’, or ‘right’ being shouted. They could not here them individually, nor could they hear them together. The only sound that could be heard was the voice, the will, the standard of the majority.
At that instant, the class of minority scholarship students realized that as merely 4% of the population, no one could hear their voices. Black students make up 4% of the student body, the same goes for Hispanic/Latino, and Asian American undergraduate students as a percent of the student population. The groups could not be heard individually, nor were their collective voices heard as 12% of the students. To be heard, they would have to convince those around them, those not like them, those in the majority to shout with them, to be on their side, in order for their voices to be heard. Otherwise, the students would have to “do” something other than to just shout.
That day, the students learned what it takes to be heard, the instructors empowered the students with the history of revolts, the power of rallies, and the results of recent protests on the campus, and everyone involved left with a better understanding that there is more to it than sit-ins, marches, and speeches, to fully grasp and accomplish a level social justice in a setting such as the small Midwest town where the college is set, you cannot go at it alone or in small, minority groups, you must get people of all races and ethnicities to work together toward that cause. That day the students got a lesson. That day the graduate instructors got to do more than just lecture, talk at, or proliferate, we had the chance to involve the students and really teach activism.
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- Students at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Trangender Support Center
Some put the lesson in activism to work two days later by going out to early voting, while others went out to tour all of the culture centers and sites of activism around the campus. My takeaway: there’s not much that I enjoy more than Teaching Activism.
carldarnell 