Spring Break
Faculty offer suggestions for improving race relations at St. Joe's
Issue date: 11/12/08 Section: Opinion
To the Editor:
With the recent racist graffiti in a classroom in McShain, we are reminded, again, as a community, how much more work we need to do to tackle the problem of racism at Saint Joseph's University. While an incident of individual racism like the drawing is horrifying, it also points up the regular and systemic racism experienced by faculty, staff, and students of color on this campus.
We would like to suggest the following ways that we as a community can work to "see" and address racism on our campus. In order to address systemic racism, we suggest the following actions.
Revisit the 2000 Race Task Force report at http://www.sju.edu/admin/diversity/presidents_taskforce/index.html and consider the recommendations that were provided there. Bench mark our racial progress against the 2000 task force data.
Develop a place and a method for reporting and responding to racism on campus. Create a simple online form for reporting racist events and reinstate the Racial Harassment Review Panel to look into such accusations. Empower the committee to sanction violators or provide opportunities for mediation between individuals/groups with conflicts. Place someone in charge of the reporting of racism on campus who can respond and investigate immediately. Modify the student and faculty handbooks to reflect any needed changes.
Reframe the conversation about race and racism as a discussion of power differences and the history of U.S. culture. Find ways to address white racism. Change the conversation to get beyond "diversity" which is a term that takes the power differences out of discussions of race/racism.
Provide small group anti-racist workshops and training for administrators, faculty, and staff. At the same time, train selected faculty and staff in anti-racist work so they can conduct other workshops for students, faculty, and staff in the spring (as well as integrate this work into the courses we teach).
Select an "SJU Reads" book for the fall of 2009 with broad input from the faculty that is particularly relevantissues of white racism and white racial identity development. For example, a book such as "Blood Done Sign My Name" by Timothy Tyson, which deals with how whites responded to a black lynching in North Carolina during the Civil Rights movement. Provide additional materials for faculty who want to talk about race and racism with their classes.
With the recent racist graffiti in a classroom in McShain, we are reminded, again, as a community, how much more work we need to do to tackle the problem of racism at Saint Joseph's University. While an incident of individual racism like the drawing is horrifying, it also points up the regular and systemic racism experienced by faculty, staff, and students of color on this campus.
We would like to suggest the following ways that we as a community can work to "see" and address racism on our campus. In order to address systemic racism, we suggest the following actions.
Revisit the 2000 Race Task Force report at http://www.sju.edu/admin/diversity/presidents_taskforce/index.html and consider the recommendations that were provided there. Bench mark our racial progress against the 2000 task force data.
Develop a place and a method for reporting and responding to racism on campus. Create a simple online form for reporting racist events and reinstate the Racial Harassment Review Panel to look into such accusations. Empower the committee to sanction violators or provide opportunities for mediation between individuals/groups with conflicts. Place someone in charge of the reporting of racism on campus who can respond and investigate immediately. Modify the student and faculty handbooks to reflect any needed changes.
Reframe the conversation about race and racism as a discussion of power differences and the history of U.S. culture. Find ways to address white racism. Change the conversation to get beyond "diversity" which is a term that takes the power differences out of discussions of race/racism.
Provide small group anti-racist workshops and training for administrators, faculty, and staff. At the same time, train selected faculty and staff in anti-racist work so they can conduct other workshops for students, faculty, and staff in the spring (as well as integrate this work into the courses we teach).
Select an "SJU Reads" book for the fall of 2009 with broad input from the faculty that is particularly relevantissues of white racism and white racial identity development. For example, a book such as "Blood Done Sign My Name" by Timothy Tyson, which deals with how whites responded to a black lynching in North Carolina during the Civil Rights movement. Provide additional materials for faculty who want to talk about race and racism with their classes.
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