However, based on my experiences this past semester, I think we should reevaluate.

Regular readers of this column will recall my TA who felt inconvenienced by my request that he call out racist comments in the classroom. That’s just one example of people around me who choose passivity instead of action.

Last month, I sat through an entire lecture about the Harlem Renaissance for an English class and my professor (who has been published and received awards for her work) did not use the words race, racism, black, or African-American the whole time.

Her lecture erased history. Her decision to use call the Harlem Renaissance “a distinctly American movement” represents an unwillingness to factually describing the time period as a movement to demonstrate black excellence. She intentionally avoided using any words that related to race! She’s complicit in a larger problem that plagues our world: historical revisionism. This issue has become apparent in Texas, Japan, South Korea, and so many other places. In this country, this problem usually happens with nonwhite history, like my English professor propagating lies about black history. So much for progressive.

Several other experiences revealed to me the saddening truth about academia.

I recently turned in a final paper for a class in which I researched and explained how our usage of language always already privileges a male viewpoint, and provided ample support from reliable sources, but I still lost points for “absolutism.” I also cited a scholar’s interpretation of a poem, and wrote that I thought it was flawed and misguided. Then I lost points for claiming that a scholar could make such a mistake.

Because of my status as an undergraduate student, my professor seems to indicate that I am barred from criticizing scholarly work and drawing conclusions that disrupt the status quo. If we claim that certain people’s opinions are inviolable or invulnerable to criticism, how exactly are we supposed to evolve and better the world?

Apparently, we’re not.

The fact that academia is still dominated by older white men displays the unwillingness of people to accept other viewpoints that don’t comply with heteronormative expectations. If people were truly invested in the narratives of people of color, non-heterosexual people, and other groups, then the population of scholars would not be so homogeneous.

This graphic displays the lack of diversity in college faculty. Even in schools where nonwhite students hold the majority, the faculty remains mostly white.

These inequalities extend to gender, too. The graph below displays the imbalance between men and women in various faculty ranks nationwide.

Why do I and so many other marginalized people often feel alone in raising these issues in classrooms and academic spaces?

The idleness and passivity of my peers reflects a deeply-rooted privileged mindset that allows people to watch these injustices happen instead of fight back.

Police kill innocent black children and are not punished, much of congress wants to defund programs for women’s health, white men who terrorize the world still evade the label terrorists, and this dumpster fire of a human being is leading in the polls for president.

That’s why I become so angry when the school I attend and the people in authority take every opportunity to shut down my small acts of resistance. People say college is about learning to change the world, and even in the smallest instances, my attempts were denied. My experiences and those of so many other people of color and marginalized populations demonstrate the clear illusion of progress in academia.

Let’s work together to change that.

Refuse to be content with our society.

Voice your opinions and debate your superiors.

Write provocative papers and ask pressing questions.

Be critical of yourself, your peers, your relationships, and communities.

Work to decolonize your mind in every instance.

Let’s transform academia from a stifling atmosphere into a space that fosters revolutionary thought.

The idea of “decolonizing our minds” comes from writings of the author, feminist and social activist bell hooks. She encourages us to critically examine every thought and action, free ourselves from the coercive ideologies, and overcome the impacts of structural oppression. This monthly column will analyze spaces and times where and when we can pause and make strides in this arduous process, and also highlight figures who are helping us to decolonize ourselves.

The post Decolonize Your Mind: Resist Every Day appeared first on KRUI Radio.

In recent events at several college campuses around the country, specifically Yale and Mizzou, students of color at PWIs (predominantly white institutions) are working towards achieving change and have made significant progress in the past few weeks. However, students had to take drastic steps to capture administrative attention. These steps became necessary when the privileged refused to simply listen.

When black students at Mizzou felt unsafe on campus as white students around them created a toxic environment with blatantly racist actions, students of color voiced their concerns and administration ignored them. They protested vocally on campus, calling for a response from the school president and others in faculty, and nothing was done. Eventually, the school president resigned two days after black football players joined the movement in solidarity with other activist groups and refused to play; college football brings in millions of dollars for the school, so I have safely assumed that to be the president’s primary reason for resignation.

This situation represents only one instance when people who have institutional power refuse to take action regarding the concerns of the oppressed, or even acknowledge the existence of a problem.

Keep listening, there’s more.

After the recent terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13th, the already-prevalent Islamophobia has become an even more serious threat to Muslims everywhere. People quickly demonize Islam as a dangerous religion because conservative politicians and media have fed this narrative to the public. Without listening to Muslim people, many white people have decided that they pose a serious danger and have become violent in the anti-Muslim backlash since the Paris attacks.

Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz recently stated that he believes Christians of any race or ethnicity “pose no meaningful risk of … committing acts of terror” and insisted that the USA should only allow Christian Syrian refugees into this country, which further vilifies the entire religion of Islam, and also ignores the insidious history of radical Christians and their acts of terrorism. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized black people and other minorities in this country for years, and instances of Christian extremism leading to violence plague this country’s history, despite Cruz’s denial and delusions. Because white Christian people largely control the dissemination of information, these extremists rarely receive the right label: terrorists.

This idea that terrorism is exclusively a tradition of Islam partly comes from a refusal to listen. Muslim people have unfortunately been forced to explicitly state a painfully obvious defense of their religion and remind everyone that extremists can pervert any religion. To label the entire religion as inherently violent and dangerous is insulting, prejudiced, and simply incorrect.

The addition of common sense with simply listening to Muslim people (and the subtraction of racist beliefs) will lead any logical person to the same conclusion.

Apparently thousands of Americans, including everyone on FOX news, all the Republican candidates for president and a few people in my classes, are not familiar with this equation.

During a discussion about police brutality in one of my classes, one girl argued that black people are biased in their perceptions of police brutality, and this necessitates a third party’s point of view to validate their experiences. Apparently, hearing testimony from people living the reality of police brutality does not suffice.

She basically just said “I’m white, and police brutality doesn’t seem THAT bad.”

As a privileged white girl, I don’t understand how she is more qualified to discuss this topic than black people who face this state-sanctioned racism every day.

This represents an unfortunately perfect example of white people discounting the words and experiences of people of color. White people continue to ignore and talk over people of color, believing that they somehow have more knowledge about the lives of nonwhite people than actual nonwhite people.

Some words of advice to you ignorant white people: stop talking over us.

You don’t understand the experiences of people of color. Instead, let us control our own narratives and define our own identities. Believe us. Support us. Listen to us.

The idea of “decolonizing our minds” comes from writings of the author, feminist and social activist bell hooks. She encourages us to critically examine every thought and action, free ourselves from the coercive ideologies, and overcome the impacts of structural oppression. This monthly column will analyze spaces and times where and when we can pause and make strides in this arduous process, and also highlight figures who are helping us to decolonize ourselves.

The post Decolonize Your Mind: Listen! appeared first on KRUI Radio.