The SU administration’s hesitation to fully acknowledge the recent hate crimes on campus cannot be swept under an MLK Celebration mat. While the 35th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration is a much needed recognition of the esteemed civil rights leader’s life, by no means should this celebratory event stand as a substitute for the administration’s further fulfillment of the #NotAgainSU movement’s demands.

The MLK Celebration works to honor King’s mission themed around the renowned revolutionary’s “Living Legacy.”  The event highlights featured speaker and present-day civil rights leader Rev. Raphael Warnock who, according to the Dean of Hendricks Chapel Rev. Brian Konkol, “speaks and serves with authority on how we too can participate in a living legacy.”

That being said, it’s unfortunate that the event’s announcements, bulletins, and digital flyers make no mention of how King presented his own “living legacy” in the form of the thousands of students protesting, standing in solidarity with, and battling the terrors of racism during the Civil Rights Movement. Today, students still protest on college campuses around the country like #NotAgainSU here.

Priding itself as being the largest of its kind on a college campus , the celebration fails to utilize this immense platform to stand in solidarity with the #NotAgainSU movement. Instead, advertisements for the event use vague but all-inclusive wording that merely acknowledge the issue of racial tensions within the “world, nation, and society,” to evade the unfortunately prevalent issue of racial tensions on the SU campus itself.

While it should be acknowledged that prejudiced ignorance, racial tensions, and hate crimes do not solely reside on the SU campus, the MLK Celebration of 2020 should specifically provide healing to students dealing with the traumatic on-campus hate crimes of 2019.

Nonetheless, the celebration cannot stand as an alternate solution to the administration’s failure to recognize the recent racially-charged incidents at SU as hate crimes. While Rev. Warnock should work to integrate some sort of recognition of those involved in the protests into his speech, acting as if the celebration can eradicate prejudice on campus is naive at best.

During the #NotAgainSU protests in November of 2019, it took many of the sororities and fraternities on campus multiple days before they felt compelled, if at all, to post on Instagram and stand in solidarity with the  . Unfortunately, the aesthetically pleasing graphics of their “we stand in solidarity with #NotAgainSU” social media posts failed to make up for the delayed support and lack of genuinity.

The issue of Greek organizations using civil rights protests and events to propel their own image comes into play once more when the organizations attempt to make the MLK Celebration a “highly recommended” event to attend for all students who are rushing. Both the protest and celebration take on the burden of advocating against racial injustice on campus, and unlike SU fraternities and sororities, the SU administration should not misuse these events to the benefit of their own image.

By considering the celebration as an exemplary transformation of their reaction to racial tensions on campus, the administration is merely influencing students to believe that one-time events can solve the issue of racism that has been thoroughly ingrained into America’s roots for multiple centuries.

The failure to be transparent about racism on the SU campus cannot be miraculously cured by an annual MLK Celebration, just as the recognition of #NotAgainSU students as deserving of the title as part of King’s “Living Legacy” cannot be ignored by an annual MLK Celebration. However, if the celebration entirely disregards the SU administration’s failures, #NotAgainSU student protestors, and recent on campus hate crimes, then it is King’s dream for the betterment of this world, SU included, that is ultimately disrespected and disregarded.

Published on January 20, 2020 at 8:46 pm