The simple fact of the matter is that we, as youngblack students at this historically black college and others across the nation,are often MISrepresented, MISunderstood, and MIStaken for people to be takenless than seriously! Am I lying? It’s no secret that this is by design and notby accident.
Forget the fact that many of us overcome hurdle afterhurdle to get in school, step over piles of “BS” in attempts to be successfulin our classes and make excellent grades while we’re here, and graduate,leaving this campus with more dignity and more knowledge than we had when wecame.
Society accepts as truth what it wants to believeabout us, regardless of whether or not it’s actually THE truth. Stigma afterstigma is stapled to our young black identities time and time again. AmeriKKKasees us as underachieving, unqualified, flossed-out blinging, ball dribbling,hyper-sexed, lazy, baby momma/daddy, club hopping killers headed for jail toreunite with the rest of our family members.
A lot of times, we feed right into these stereotypesand give society the ammunition it needs to say that that’s who we are. Eventhough we know better than that and we know that there is more to the blackstudent than Greek shows, parties and sports. Society wants and feels a need tobelieve the opposite about us because it needs a “bad guy” to blame for it’scrap (I brought my own “AMEN”). We know that great minds are being cultivatedright here! We know that the worlds’ trend setters are being nurtured righthere and future leaders are being shaped right here even though society refusesto acknowledge that.
The sad reality about the situation is that no matterhow high and how great our achievements may be, we are still going to beperceived as less than who and what we really are in this “color-blind” societythat we live in. So do we just lie down, roll, over and accept this as ourfate. HELL to the NAW!
On nextMonday, you will have a chance to vote for an SU magazine that will shed somereal light on what goes on at this school and will provide a balanced pictureof the wonderful things that we as young black students are making happeneveryday. This is an excellent opportunity for us to represent ourselves in apositive way and let the world know that there is more to Southern Universitythan the Bayou Classic. Every opportunity that we can get to showcase ouraccomplishments, our talents, and our beauty should be taken withouthesitation.
This is not something we need to do just to try tomake America realize that we aren’t the “thugs” that they want to see us asbecause clearly they’ll see us exactly how they want to see us. What thismagazine will do is make a statement and tell those members of society whochooses to view us as something other than who we are that we will not sitpassively by while you piss on us with your negative perceptions.
Vote “YES”!
