Tim Wolfe and the chancellor has been “ousted” resigned from the University of Missouriand the sweet smell of victory is in the air. If you don’t understand what the issue is, then I can give a quick rundown. Students at the University of Missouri were in protest over issues of racism and racial harassment. It had went so far as to even affect the athletics at the university:
University of Missouri football players said they will boycott team activities until the school’s president resigns or is fired in the latest protest against Tim Wolfe’s handling of race issues.
The football players’ move — announced on social media late Saturday — comes after graduate student Jonathan Butler went on hunger strike earlier this week to call attention to the issue.
The Legion of Black Collegians said in a statement that athletes of color on the Mizzou footballteam won’t participate in any “football-related” activities” until Wolfe “resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experiences.”
The university’s athletics department said it was aware of the declarations made by many of its student athletes.
“We all must come together with leaders from across our campus to tackle these challenging issues and we support our student-athletes right to do so,” it said in a statement.
There was no immediate response from Wolfe over the declarations. [1]
And that is where things became rather “alarming” to me. It makes one wonder just how serious things had become in order to necessitate the removal of a college president. However, racial issues are always going to be a hot button issue within America.
You know: because America is inherently racist to the core. And its racist side didn’t take too long to pop up in social media. In fact, many students took to Yik Yak to express their viewpoints of Tim Wolfe stepping down. And a good amount of it was not really that positive towards the issues.
And if you are wondering “why” about this entire protest situation, then there is some explanation for it all:
Wolfe has been criticized over his response to a series of incidents on the Missouri campus, including the use of racial slurs and the discovery of a swastika on campus. [2]
Butler has been on hunger strike since Nov. 2, and a Change.org petition has garnered more than 2,300 signatures calling for Wolfe’s removal.
Let’s be for real about all of this: I am actually torn about this entire situation.
Concerned Student 1950 and Fighting For Rights
We can all be assured that these students are doing what they should. Uniting against a force of will, a force of relentless cultural trepidation is something that has been done for decades. Our parents/grandparents did during the Civil Rights Movement. Nowadays, we see it in situations with #Blacklivesmatter and #OccupyWallStreet. Protest is going to happen because protest, in itself, is a necessity for human progress and evolution. As long as there are going to be a “power to fight”, people are going to unite and fight the power.
And they will do this with or without a soundtrack provided by Chuck D and Flava Flav.
But Should Concerned Student 1950 Have Fought the Good Fight?
Yet, a part of me is beyond all of these actions toward “we shall overcome” when we should be chanting the Phuck You Symphony by Millie Jackson. At some point in our lives, maybe “taking our business elsewhere” should be the collective response to racial disparities and indignation. I respect forcing the hand of institutionalized racism. I also feel that there comes a time when eliminating our presence within a problematic environment should be the response of anybody that wants to truly show how much power they have. There is going to be a time when packing our collective bags and doing for ourselves needs to be the fitting response.
I mean, we do have HBCU’s. Why not just go to those schools and make some noise by being successful? That may be a nice, albeit mundane, thought.
Plus, I’m not really sure that people understand WHY this protest was so successful. These decisions weren’t mostly motivated by “doing the right thing”. This decision for Wolfe was mainly about economics. Point blank, period: the football team brings in millions for the university. And Wolfe was fucking up the money. Thus, to keep Wolfe from further fucking up the money, it was time for him to hit the highway.
So, please don’t mistake racial progress for the continuation of economic viability. Those Black football players are part of the cash cow for the university. Think anything else and you are bullshitting yourself.
Concerned Student 1950 and The Finite Ending
In short, there comes a time to hold your own among your own. This isn’t the 1950’s where assimilation would do us much good. In these days and times, become self-sufficient should be the name of the game. In previous blogs, I have mentioned “raging against the machine” and the other option of “unplugging it”. Yet and still, there is always that option of “creating our own machine”. That way, we have control over how everything works.
I don’t know, though. Maybe I am still just a dreamer.