Dear Eastern Michigan University Regents & Administration:

As a Eastern Michigan University Alum, current graduate student, and African American male, I am disappointed and disgusted with the manner in which you all have handled the situations around the hateful graffiti on campus. You all have been seemingly adverse in your actions to, first of all, make your students feel safe and wanted at this university. You all have failed to send further correspondence on behalf of the University since our previous meeting with myself and other student leaders. You have failed to provide any further updates for your students on the investigation of the racist graffiti incidents. You have failed to do anything to show students any glimmer of hope that you all actually care about the concerns of the general population of African American students.

Not only have you all failed on several levels to ensure students feel comfortable and wanted at this university, you all allow further investigation and formal letters to be sent to students who protested against these actions that made students feel unsafe and unwanted at this University. Some of you have stated “this is a matter of policy,” or “in the real world, when you break the rules, you have to live with the consequences.” In the real world, Blacks are faced with charges for crimes they did not commit. In the real world, Blacks are killed every day by white police officers who rarely ever have to go through the judicial system, and if they do, the chances of actually being convicted are even smaller. In the real world, Blacks are alienated and oppressed with little voice to speak against their oppressor, which resembles how this University has decided to treat a demographic of students that make up 19% of its population.

When you allow Black students to be treated like this, this is more than a socio-cultural hiccup on your end, it could lead to a financial nightmare and recruitment failure for the university. Why would we as Black students recommend this University to anyone of our race as we experience first hand the blatant attacks against us with no resolution? How can we speak to the diversity of this university when the university has taken more time to investigate and call in for questioning students who protest than they have to find the culprits that ignited the fire inside the protesters? How can we say “Education First” when a university gives additional stress of potential judicial sanctions a month after a protest and one week before final exams begin? How can we say “We are TRUEMU” when Black students become disciplinary martyrs for things that they believe in while you all use the “progress” of the Black Student 10 to cover up your own institutionalized attacks? Lastly, how do you expect for Black Alum to contribute to a University that has alienated and circumvented outlets for their voices to be heard during their matriculation here?

We cannot and we will not support a university that has done nothing more than alienate their own students to save face. The bigger issue at hand is that you all have only made matters worse as you give media more reasons to cover these terrible issues that you all seem to not care about, especially with a petition of over 1,000 signatures urging the university to not pursue any sanctions against students for their protests against your own failures to resolve these matters or even make students feel like you care to take action. Though I have not ran a University, I understand people and demographics enough to know that you all have taken multiple steps in the wrong direction. It is with my little hope for you all that you find it within your hearts, minds, souls, or whatever place your moral compass and rationale reside to begin taking steps in the opposite direction from where you have gone.

Sincerely,

Tiran Burrel

EMU President Smith holds a Listening Session at which community members, students, and staff condemn his decision to discipline student protesters and question his administration’s ability to appropriately address racism at EMU.
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Anthony Morgan

People who are self-proclaimed racists subconsciously and outwardly feel a sense of superiority and Supremacy based on information that has been passed down systematically (be it false or not) and validated through every industry within society allowing the view to be upheld, woven and socially engineered through almost every form of media.

As their big closed brains continue to push the agenda of the Ku Klux Klan, with or without valid knowledge of true hateful agenda or wholeheartedly embracing their clandestine-cowardice tactics, perspectives and methods of carrying out ignorance and stupidity.

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Last week, in the face of ongoing campus and community pushback against Eastern Michigan University’s targeting of Black student protestors, Media Relationship Manager Geoff Larcom announced to MLive that, rather than follow the ACLU’s recommendation to drop all disciplinary charges against students, EMU was going to dig in its heels:

“EMU Police and the Conduct Office are continuing to investigate the matter,” Larcom said. “Many of the students who stayed in the building refused to provide their names or IDs. As additional identifications are established, they also will be subject to the student conduct process.”

Yesterday we learned that the university had issued disciplinary summonses to an additional eleven Black students, bringing the total to fifteen. We’re infuriated, but not surprised (glance at the bios of these Regents—all but one of whom are white Snyder-appointees—and you’ll get a sense of why campus protest activity might be met with repression rather than compassion). It’s not only a dumb move, it’s also a dangerous one. As one EMU student put it:

Notice since EMU started taking action against students, the racists have stopped. They’re satisfied with EMU doing the job for them.

The longer EMU Regents and administrators continue to harass the Black students who are organizing to counteract expressions of hatred left around campus by white supremacists, the more it is that white supremacists—on campus, in town, across the county—receive this message: If you inflict trauma on our Black students, we’ll close the loop by bringing them into the disciplinary system when they speak out about it.

Add to this that it’s the end of the semester for these students, and you’ll understand why it’s imperative each of us let these and all Black students know we’ve got their backs.

Almost three months ago, prisoners at Kinross Correctional Facility participated in a nationally-coordinated prison strike that took place on September 9th. The work stoppage quickly escalated into a mass protest in the prison yard demonstrating the unity of the prisoners and, when faced with violent reprisal by the guards, escalated again into an all-out riot.

Following the events of September 9th and 10th, approximately 250 prisoners were transferred from Kinross to other facilities in the Michigan prison system, most being placed into Administrative Segregation (the hole), being charged with “Inciting a Riot or Strike” and “Rioting or Striking Misconduct,” and having their security statuses raised.

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Join Keep Ypsi Black for a screening of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise—Part 1, which will be followed by an open mic.

Cindy Milstein

Freshly painted mural art, on side of building next to new hipster-gentrifying club in SW Detroit, November 28, 2016. Photo by Cindy Milstein.

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Rainy, gray-gloomy day. News across Turtle Island of white supremacist attacks and even murder as well as white supremacist infrastructure readying its brutal, annihilationist power. Politicians on all sides, from “moderates” to Michigan’s already-cruel governor Rick Snyder, urge support for Trump or to at least give him a chance; liberals and progressives, too, mouth similar sentiments, coded as “it’ll be better in four years.” People hang onto the already-torn thread of “rights” and “rule of law”; they cling to safety pins, electoral counts and electoral college, or greeting-card platitudes of “love not hate.”

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Wearing a safety pin is like giving change to someone living on the street.

Wearing a safety pin is like a Bernie sticker on a Land Rover.

Wearing a safety pin is like working in finance and shopping at the coop.

Wearing a safety pin is like waking up hopeful after sleeping soundly since Ferguson.

Wearing a safety pin is like a Sex Pistols poster in a Midtown loft.

Wearing a safety pin is like inviting neighbors to dinner and serving little bowls of sugar.

Wearing a safety pin is like dog-earing a page in a self-help book.

Wearing a safety pin is like going to confession.

Wearing a safety pin is like premium unleaded.

Wearing a safety pin is like traveling to a forest fire with a potted sapling.

Wearing a safety pin is like holding open a door for someone in a wheelchair because they may thank you.

Wearing a safety pin is like going to a tanning salon.

Wearing a safety pin is like switching from Rolex to Shinola.

Wearing a safety pin is like witnessing an assault then speaking up on Facebook.

Wearing a safety pin is like biking to work to heal the planet.

Wearing a safety pin is like paying reparations with bus passes.

Wearing a safety pin is like getting a massage.

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As performed by The N-Word, Inc.: