Keep Hoods Yours

As revolutionaries working to spread mass rebellion and develop independence/autonomy from the system, it’s important to not only share our visions of the new world we carry in our hearts, but to also highlight/promote existing tendencies that already are, or have the potential to be, rebellious, anti-authoritarian & communal (even if such tendencies aren’t flawless; context is always important). Don’t just preach condescendingly at people, encourage what good is already there.

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The Black Student 10-Point Plan

1. We demand that the amount of Black faculty match the amount of Black students (not including all faculty in the Africology department). Meaning: the ratio needs to match without including the Black faculty in that department. We demand these positions be majority tenure-track so that their position is not disposable.

2. We demand all students be required to take a general education course on race, ethnicity, and racism.

3. We demand Black Studies be built into the curriculum of every major. Meaning: all students would be required to take a course in the AFC department with a focus in their major.

4. We demand annual cultural competency training and evaluation for all faculty and staff including DPS.

5. We demand a CMA that has the capacity to host large groups of marginalized students in a safe space without restrictions on outside food. We demand a functioning CMA equipped with proper space and given proper recognition.

6. We demand a low-income meal plan option—not requiring that students who live on campus purchase a meal plan.

7. We demand several Black financial advisors whose sole purpose is to find and distribute scholarships and financial aid to and for Black students specifically.

8. We demand a separate committee, made up of students selected by BSU, for Black Homecoming Week, with the autonomy and power to schedule and hold events for Black Homecoming.

9. We demand a Doctorate and Master’s Program for Africology and African American Studies with adequate funding and no less three full-time graduate assistantships, in addition to making AFC a teachable subject for Student-Teachers.

10. We demand the Women’s Resource Center dedicate at least three programs a year to Black women specifically. We demand a Black resource center under the umbrella of the Center for Multicultural Affairs.

We demand points below be put into writing as Ordinances or added into the charter for the City of Ypsilanti. Put in writing (ordinance or charter revisions) repercussions for not adhering to revisions to policy; something other than “discretion of police chief.”

1. Police Reform

a. Annual cultural competency training

b. Procedure laid out for dealing with people with mental illnesses

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Dear students, faculty, personnel, and allies at EMU,

We, the elected members of the Detroit Board of Education are stripped of all authority. We have been under emergency management for five years. During that time, academics have declined exponentially for our students, more than half of our schools have been closed and our debt to the State that created it is more than triple what it had been before the takeover.

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When we say “decolonize,” one of the things we mean is to abolish the mindframe which insists that some people may take and own whatever they want to take and own from a class of people who’ve been deemed lesser.

Colonists aren’t merely a thing of previous centuries—gentrifiers, for instance, practice a form of colonialism. So do predatory lenders and frat boys in blackface.

And so do administrators, managers, and marketers (etc.) when they decline to acknowledge their appropriation of the creative work of Black people—especially when the appropriation is meant as a form of homage.

We’ll be back on the streets tomorrow night. Join us!

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