On Wednesday Nov. 11 around noon, hundreds of VCU students rallied together to stand in solidarity with the students at University of Missouri (Mizzou). This was after learning about the death threats being implemented towards Mizzou’s African American students after the resignation of their President, Tim Wolfe. VCU students gathered peacefully, and remained well-organized on the Compass.
(Photo credits to: Micah Buck)
Soon the scene was joined by faculty members of VCU to talk to the students, and answer any questions they may have.
The Dean wasn’t there to answer any questions in regards to the events that transpired the rally. Jafar Cooper, a sophomore VCU Theatre student recounted the involvement of the Dean by saying “The faculty is the best part.” he said sarcastically and then added, “the Dean was here for a little bit. He left throughout (the rally), came back. Then he left again without saying anything or contributing anything.” Once the rally was over, the Dean was spotted back on the scene but not socializing with any of the students, instead stayed off to the side talking to his older, white faculty members.
When asked what the questions were about (as it’s hard to hear the soft spoken faculty members even from up-close), Cooper said “We are trying to device different strategies to prevent this (Mizzou) from happening on our campus and question the faculty, the VCU police and the administration of VCU, why microaggressions happen within our education and why our teachers are not “woke” to the social injustice that occurs on our campus, in our world, and in our country” As the event progressed, things got heated up once the Chief of Police John Venuti, said that “we’ve been trying to make events for you people” when asked how VCU is trying to make racial awareness known on campus.
Reyna Smith, a current student at VCU said “I didn’t even know we had a Chief of Police. Like you’re talking about all of these initiatives that were supposedly set in place but where were you? Why don’t I know your name? Why is it the only time I see you is when you’re trying to arrest me? However when I went to ask him a question he said ‘you people’, and I got mad, yeah I was angry. And everyone was trying to calm me down.” She continued to say “And then he was like ‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t intentional’ and that’s the problem. Your use of that microaggression ‘you people’ wasn’t intentional. You don’t think about what you’re doing. You don’t think about how harmful it is on the people you’re inflicting it on.”
Trigger words such as “you people” are called microaggressions. So what is VCU doing to prevent the use of these microaggressions by the faculty? According to the Division for Inclusive Excellence there are microaggression sessions where faculty and students can register to become more culturally competent. However, these sessions are only optional. “If VCU is such a ‘diverse,’ and so willing for different people, there should be a required course for our faculty to know how to deal with these microaggressions.”
Cooper made a point that “..these meetings haven’t been publicized because if so, a large amount of the black population, of the POC, queer and other marginalized groups would’ve attended. So obviously this wasn’t advertised in a way that these students could see or take advantage of these opportunities.”
Although VCU prides itself in being a diversified institution, it still has a predominantly white faculty and students. With over 30,000 students (both graduate and undergraduate) 51% are White, 15% are Black/African American, 12% Asian, and 7% are Latino, while the remainder are international students, biracial and non-specific.
“I am a black body, existing at an PWI (predominantly white institution), I am angry all of the time” Smith said.
Cooper had plenty to say about the lack of black faculty members. “Why do we still have problems with the amount of black faculty, not the adjunct faculty, the actual registered faculty and with those who get paid with tenure, why do we have such an inequality of that? And in the arts specially we have no black, residential teachers with tenure. And I am in the theatre department and I only have two, and I’m not going to have that many classes with them two because they are not the main teachers within the department.”
Many others at the rally also pointed out that within their time at VCU they have only had one black professor throughout their student career. The average full-time student takes five classes a semester for four years for an equivalent of 120 credit hours to graduate. This makes it so that at minimum of 1/40 professors in a student’s college journey would be black. This does not include specific programs or TAs. Brittney Maddox, a current student who took a summer course in African American Family in Social Context with her second Black professor here in her time at VCU, quoted her professor that “out of all 300+ professors that we have, we only have only 70 POC (people of color) including black professors.”
Another concern that was addressed was the curriculum set not only by VCU but majority of other American universities as well. As mentioned, there are African-American studies, but it is not a requirement.
“I’m not learning about African American theatre even though that is such a huge part of the theatre itself. I am learning about older, white, Eurocentric theatre ideas. While all of these things are good for my education, why are my experiences removed?” Cooper said.
“Why is my history an elective?” Smith said. Cooper added on “Why is it not a main part of our curriculum? Why shouldn’t everybody have to learn about black culture?”
“They view us all the same. Here I am getting my education but I am going to be viewed the same as someone living in the ‘hood’ doing sh*t, not getting their education. That’s the issue… The way people view black people needs to change. That’s what we need to be focusing on is that, we are people just like your people.” said Danielle Perry, another current VCU student.
For hope and action of this change, we stand with you Mizzou.
(Photo Credit: Travis “TravieTrav” Ellis)