Four years ago, a rash of high-profile hate-based incidents occurred at Georgetown. In response, students and administrators cooperated to address serious omissions in the student code of conduct regarding bias-related offenses. Now, a new movement is preparing to tackle another form of racism, one that is more subtle and pervasive.
It is all too easy to believe that racism is only expressed through a few visible and dramatic events; however, minorities who experience racism understand how widespread ignorance-even among the educated-taints everyday life. Unfortunately, this type of racism flies under the radar of administrators and many students. It’s time for the entire University community to confront this different type of racism with different types of solutions.
In the past week, the Georgetown chapter of the NAACP, Black Student Alliance and other student groups held meetings and rallies to discuss an e-mail that contained racial epithets and hateful sentiments sent to BSA leadership. What surfaced was a widespread frustration over a pervasive problem that receives attention only when high-profile racist incidents occur.
At a rally in Red Square last Friday, African American, as well as Jewish, Muslim, Asian and Hispanic students addressed concerns that go beyond the scope of the e-mail. Several speakers expressed their concern over incidents in which perpetrators of racism were unaware that their comments were offensive. Others expressed concern that even when recognized as racist, each individual incident is given a lower priority over the more visible signs of racism by the University community.
To address these issues, the BSA and the NAACP have proposed several resolutions to University President John J. DeGioia that call for proactive measures to transform the culture of Georgetown. These resolutions include mandatory diversity and culture training for faculty, an expansion of the African American Studies program and an increase in the scope of the Center for Minority Educational Affairs’ mission to include educating the entire community.
These resolutions represent the first steps in keeping the discussion of racism alive and establishing a long-term commitment for real change. Organizers should not expect change to come as easily as it did four years ago because this time, the movement will be attempting to address a racism that is difficult to perceive and deeply entrenched in everyday life. They will first have to convince potential administrators that smaller acts of ignorance perpetrated by students, faculty and administrators are just as unacceptable as more obvious incidents of hate.
One way to nurture discrimination is to forget it exists. Unlike like the solutions that were proposed four years ago, the new solutions focus on the short-term and the long-term. The university must continue a dialogue of racism to ensure that those who can easily forget that racism still exists do not forget. The university owes at least that much to its minority students.
