Forum Youth Panel

Performative Activism: Youths Reckoning with Racial Justice Author

03/24/2022 Added

44 Plays

Description

At this Cooper Conversation, young activists from UNL and Lincoln come together to discuss their activism, what motivates them, and how to move forward. Panelists will address the intersection of their own communities’ fight for racial justice, focusing on a rise in performative activism, allyship, burden of representation, and microaggressions. Moderated by Meyri Ibrahim, UNL political science and journalism major.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:00.078](upbeat music)
[00:00:06.930]Today you are part of an important conversation
[00:00:09.620]about our shared future.
[00:00:12.030]The E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues
[00:00:14.190]explores the diversity of viewpoints
[00:00:16.400]on international and public policy issues
[00:00:18.970]to promote understanding and encouraged debate
[00:00:21.810]across the university and the State of Nebraska.
[00:00:25.210]Since its inception in 1988,
[00:00:28.150]hundreds of distinguished speakers have challenged
[00:00:30.770]and inspired us,
[00:00:32.270]making this forum one of the pre-eminent speaker series
[00:00:36.670]in higher education.
[00:00:39.440]It all started when E.N Jack Thompson
[00:00:42.860]imagined a forum on global issues
[00:00:45.330]that would increase Nebraskan's understanding of cultures
[00:00:48.360]and events from around the world.
[00:00:50.810]Jack's perspective was influenced by his travels,
[00:00:54.200]his role in helping to found the United Nations
[00:00:56.970]and his work
[00:00:57.803]at the Carnegie Endowment For International Peace.
[00:01:02.120]As president of the Cooper Foundation in Lincoln,
[00:01:05.120]Jack pledged substantial funding to the forum
[00:01:08.300]and the University of Nebraska,
[00:01:10.110]and Lied Center for Performing Arts,
[00:01:12.440]agreed to co-sponsor.
[00:01:14.630]Later, Jack and his wife, Katie,
[00:01:16.870]created the Thompson Family Fund
[00:01:19.450]to support the forum and other programs.
[00:01:22.600]Today, major support is provided
[00:01:25.840]by the Cooper Foundation,
[00:01:27.930]Lied Center for Performing Arts,
[00:01:30.000]and University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
[00:01:32.850]We hope this talk sparks an exciting conversation among you.
[00:01:37.237](upbeat music)
[00:01:39.500]And now, on with the show.
[00:01:41.836](upbeat music)
[00:01:46.270]And welcome to The E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues
[00:01:49.810]and our second youth led panel.
[00:01:51.740]My name is Dorsey Garcia,
[00:01:53.270]and I'm the student intern for the forum
[00:01:55.190]and the Cooper Conversations.
[00:01:56.690]And I'm pleased to welcome you all,
[00:01:58.360]either virtually or here at The Bay.
[00:02:01.110]I would like to thank the Cooper Foundation,
[00:02:02.780]as well is the University of Nebraska, Lincoln,
[00:02:04.870]and the Lied Center for Performing Arts,
[00:02:06.870]for their ongoing support
[00:02:08.030]of the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues.
[00:02:11.560]I would like to now take this opportunity
[00:02:13.470]to introduce Nasia Olson-Whitefeather,
[00:02:15.620]one of our panelists for this evening,
[00:02:17.280]and President of the Nebraska,
[00:02:20.350]the University of Nebraska Intertribal Exchange.
[00:02:23.050]We're pleased to have Nasia perform a land acknowledgement
[00:02:25.860]for us this evening before we begin our program.
[00:02:30.957](audience applauding)
[00:02:36.060]Hello, my name is Nasia,
[00:02:38.440]or some of you know me as Nacho, but either or.
[00:02:41.940]Atlanta Acknowledgement is a former recognition
[00:02:44.150]of the indigenous tribal nations
[00:02:45.860]as the original stewards of the land.
[00:02:48.780]It is a sign of, oops,
[00:02:51.800]of respect and gratitude for the ongoing relationship
[00:02:54.810]between tribal nations and the land.
[00:02:57.040]Atlanta Acknowledgement works
[00:02:58.210]to undo racism throughout hundreds of years.
[00:03:00.730]I would like to acknowledge the ancestral, present,
[00:03:03.630]and future homelands of indigenous tribal nations,
[00:03:07.479]and peoples upon
[00:03:09.270]which the University of Nebraska, Lincoln was founded.
[00:03:11.980]The university spans across several areas.
[00:03:14.550]So I'm honored to include our original stewards of the land,
[00:03:17.510]the indigenous tribal nations
[00:03:19.910]that includes the territorial lands of the Pawnee,
[00:03:24.190]Ponca, excuse me for this.
[00:03:26.460]I can never pronounce this correctly.
[00:03:28.180]Oto-Missouri, Omaha, which is Omaha,
[00:03:32.170]Dakota, Lakota, Arapahoe,
[00:03:34.970]the Cheyenne, the Kaw people,
[00:03:37.060]as well as the relocated Ho-Chunk, Ashanti,
[00:03:40.390]the Olowe and the Sac and Fox peoples.
[00:03:43.560]I would like to introduce, Dorsey Garcia back.
[00:03:47.367](audience applauding)
[00:03:52.230]Thank you for, thank you for that, Nasia.
[00:03:55.400]As we prepare for our panel,
[00:03:56.750]I would like to remind you all
[00:03:57.880]that we'll be announcing the winner
[00:03:59.640]of our Walk Together Art Contest at the end of the event.
[00:04:02.920]It's with my great honor to introduce
[00:04:04.710]our moderator for the night, Meyri Ibrahim.
[00:04:09.083]Meyri is a Political Science in Journalism Double Major
[00:04:12.090]from Eagan, Minnesota.
[00:04:13.690]Meyri serves as the president of the black student union.
[00:04:16.840]She is also involved in the Association of Students
[00:04:19.600]at the University of Nebraska.
[00:04:21.020]And serves as a Senator for the College
[00:04:22.820]of Journalism and Mass Communications,
[00:04:25.020]as well as the Co-chair for Campus Life and Safety Committee
[00:04:28.900]which works toward improving wellbeing
[00:04:30.870]and safety of all students on campus in a number of areas.
[00:04:34.100]In her position in ASUN,
[00:04:36.127]Meyri has created
[00:04:36.960]a Standing Sexual Misconduct Presidential Committee,
[00:04:39.790]which would call for committee members
[00:04:41.360]from Greek Life campus resources,
[00:04:48.310]Administration to review the university's history
[00:04:50.540]of sexual misconduct and engaging efforts
[00:04:52.640]to change that history.
[00:04:55.187]Meyri also created a bill
[00:04:56.380]that would require land acknowledgment
[00:04:58.060]by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln,
[00:05:01.130]native American coalition to be read
[00:05:03.110]at the beginning of each ASUN meeting.
[00:05:05.780]She also serves as the liaison
[00:05:08.330]for the association of big ten schools
[00:05:09.990]and sits on several committees,
[00:05:11.810]including the Chancellor's Commission
[00:05:13.580]for the Prevention of Sexual Misconduct,
[00:05:15.430]the chancellor's Campus-Wide Collaborative
[00:05:17.420]for Sexual Misconduct,
[00:05:18.750]and Student Affairs, Student DEI Council.
[00:05:21.490]As well as Meyri's completing research with U.K.
[00:05:24.840]which supports UNO undergrads to work one-on-one
[00:05:27.460]with faculty research advisors
[00:05:29.250]and research and creative activities.
[00:05:31.490]Beyond these, Meyri is on the recruitment staff
[00:05:34.940]for the Dance Marathon,
[00:05:36.160]and is a campus host for the Office of Admissions.
[00:05:39.890]She's also a peer mentor
[00:05:41.070]for the University Honors Program, is on the civic,
[00:05:43.380]and is on the civic leaders experiential track.
[00:05:47.210]This past fall,
[00:05:48.350]Meyri was chosen to be one of the keynote speakers
[00:05:51.080]for Husker Dialogues, a diversity inclusion event,
[00:05:53.890]designed to introduce first year students
[00:05:55.650]to tools they can use to engage in meaningful conversations,
[00:05:59.530]to create an inclusive Husker community.
[00:06:02.640]Thank you, Meyri.
[00:06:04.274](audience clapping)
[00:06:07.344]Thanks.
[00:06:14.300]Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction, Dorsey.
[00:06:17.810]Hi, everyone.
[00:06:18.830]Thank you all for joining us tonight,
[00:06:20.440]whether that's in person or online.
[00:06:23.210]I was honored when I was asked to moderate this event,
[00:06:26.170]and throughout this time.
[00:06:27.620]I'm excited for you all to learn
[00:06:28.890]about the amazing panel we have
[00:06:30.670]consisting of truly inspiring people with unique
[00:06:34.140]and powerful stories.
[00:06:36.620]First up on our panel tonight is Batoul Ibrahim.
[00:06:40.180]Batoul, oh, go ahead, go ahead.
[00:06:42.916](audience applauding)
[00:06:49.156]Batoul is a Double Major in global studies
[00:06:52.230]in Political Science.
[00:06:54.000]She describes herself as a Child of the Diaspora.
[00:06:57.730]She was born in the United Arab Emirates
[00:07:00.000]and immigrated to the United States at a young age.
[00:07:03.220]And she calls Lincoln and Sudan home.
[00:07:06.560]Batoul is the current ASUN Student Body President
[00:07:08.990]and student regent,
[00:07:10.140]and is the first black person
[00:07:11.480]to hold this position in UNL's history.
[00:07:14.400]In her time as Student Body President,
[00:07:15.920]Batoul has advocated for critical race theory,
[00:07:19.150]the University of Nebraska systems,
[00:07:21.100]divestment from fossil fuels,
[00:07:23.420]equity training for ASUN members,
[00:07:25.850]a partnership with the Nebraska penitentiary system
[00:07:28.410]to help incarcerated people receive higher education,
[00:07:31.640]a fund for survivors of sexual, violence,
[00:07:35.630]an equity project grant that will be housed
[00:07:37.730]within ASUN, and much more.
[00:07:40.860]Batoul has led her administration with the idea
[00:07:43.280]that students are our only stakeholders.
[00:07:46.070]She's also the former Black Student Union President,
[00:07:48.920]a position in which she led the BSU Care Bags Program,
[00:07:52.810]an initiative that helped locals
[00:07:54.190]who are struggling through COVID-19.
[00:07:56.890]She also organized protests
[00:07:58.120]in response to George Floyd,
[00:07:59.890]death rallied for Brianna Taylor,
[00:08:02.410]and sit-ins for Jacob Blake.
[00:08:05.080]Batoul is the recent recipient
[00:08:06.980]of the 2022 fulfilling the Dream Award,
[00:08:09.600]which honors the life and legacy
[00:08:11.180]of Dr. Martin Luther king Jr.
[00:08:13.480]and the Young Leader Award,
[00:08:15.030]part of Lincoln Journal Stars Inspire Award,
[00:08:17.540]which annually recognizes the achievement of local women.
[00:08:21.380]Please give a round of applause for Batoul.
[00:08:23.508](audience applauding)
[00:08:30.370]Our next panelist we have here tonight is Mina.
[00:08:35.190](audience applauding)
[00:08:39.910]Mina is a current second year master student
[00:08:42.400]in the Education Administration Student Affairs Program
[00:08:45.470]from Puchong, Malaysia.
[00:08:47.350]During her undergraduate program at UNL,
[00:08:49.370]she received her bachelor's in Business Administration.
[00:08:52.690]In her current position as a graduate student
[00:08:54.580]for the Office of Academic Success
[00:08:56.550]and Intercultural Services,
[00:08:58.360]she assists the event program coordinator
[00:09:00.260]with planning, advertising, executing, logistics,
[00:09:04.380]and assessing the office's annual events
[00:09:07.390]including Latina, black, indigenous, Asian,
[00:09:10.920]and other heritage months celebrating
[00:09:13.740]and inclusive of experience for students.
[00:09:17.340]She also conducts programs by collaborating
[00:09:19.310]with student organizations and other departments on campus,
[00:09:22.500]such as the LGBTQA and women's centers, counseling,
[00:09:25.370]and psychological services,
[00:09:27.040]big red resilience and wellbeing,
[00:09:28.970]and many more.
[00:09:30.500]Mina alongside Tamayo Sue,
[00:09:32.580]who at the time was a master student,
[00:09:34.630]created a Stop Asian Hate and Action guide for UNL,
[00:09:38.480]and the city of Lincoln to provide resources
[00:09:41.010]and action items to educate and make an impact.
[00:09:44.250]She's passionate about the betterment
[00:09:45.760]of international students,
[00:09:47.340]and their college experience by wanting
[00:09:49.230]to dismantle barriers, challenge laws, and policies,
[00:09:52.680]as well as engaging in a community building
[00:09:55.230]and continuing to support the students.
[00:09:59.140]Through this passion, Mina helped found
[00:10:01.020]and create UNL's International Student Advisory Board.
[00:10:04.760]Mina represents graduate students
[00:10:06.460]on the Chancellor's Commission
[00:10:07.640]on the status of people of color.
[00:10:10.160]She hopes to lead institutional
[00:10:11.650]and sociopolitical transformation.
[00:10:14.250]Please, everyone welcome me
[00:10:15.490]in giving Mina a round of applause.
[00:10:17.525](audience applauding)
[00:10:24.500]Our third panelist tonight is Nasia Olsen Whitefeather.
[00:10:29.016](audience applauding)
[00:10:33.820]Nasia is a fourth year student studying
[00:10:35.980]Criminal Justice and Child Youth and Family Studies.
[00:10:38.900]With a minor in Native American Studies
[00:10:40.930]from New Hope, Minnesota.
[00:10:42.980]Nasia is a current member
[00:10:44.180]of the Delta Xi Nu Multicultural Sorority Incorporated,
[00:10:47.720]where she served as a treasurer, membership educator,
[00:10:51.060]and stroll captain.
[00:10:52.870]She was also a past member
[00:10:54.050]of the Mexican American Student Association.
[00:10:56.900]She now serves as president
[00:10:58.200]of the University of Nebraska Intertribal Exchange,
[00:11:01.220]which promotes the academic prowess,
[00:11:03.220]the academic security,
[00:11:04.220]and the professional development of indigenous students
[00:11:06.910]at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
[00:11:09.570]Within her role,
[00:11:10.403]Nasia most recently organized indigenous students
[00:11:13.830]in a trip to the Genoa U.S. Indian School,
[00:11:16.870]which is now a museum to allow for members
[00:11:19.090]to learn about the often erase history of boarding schools.
[00:11:23.200]Nasia serves on the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs,
[00:11:25.790]Student Advisory Board for racial justice,
[00:11:28.570]inclusion and equity,
[00:11:30.360]as well as the Chancellor's Commission
[00:11:32.020]on the status of people of color.
[00:11:35.150]Please join us in giving Nasia a warm round of applause.
[00:11:38.895](audience applauding)
[00:11:45.530]Our final panelist this evening is Zayn Saleh.
[00:11:48.764](audience applauding)
[00:11:54.370]Zayn is currently a senior
[00:11:56.080]at North Star High School here in Lincoln.
[00:11:59.673]Zayn is the current Key Club president,
[00:12:03.350]National Honor Society President, Debate Team captain,
[00:12:07.070]and past Student Council President.
[00:12:09.520]Zayn's advocacy is focused
[00:12:11.140]at the intersection of education,
[00:12:13.270]where he serves as the equity curriculum development intern
[00:12:17.150]for the Lincoln community learning centers,
[00:12:19.640]the first internship of its kind.
[00:12:22.180]He has developed workshops and curriculum for staff
[00:12:24.680]and after school coordinators to serve students
[00:12:26.870]from marginalized communities
[00:12:28.540]to the best of their ability.
[00:12:30.780]Through Lincoln public schools,
[00:12:31.913]Zayn is a Multicultural Scholar Diversity cadre member,
[00:12:35.890]which is a coalition of diverse students that work
[00:12:38.540]to elevate historically underrepresented students voices
[00:12:42.120]while serving as a liaison
[00:12:43.800]between the district and the student body.
[00:12:46.580]He also serves as a district module developer and presenter,
[00:12:51.330]superintendent equity town hall facilitator,
[00:12:54.380]and is one of two student members of LPS committee
[00:12:58.450]on improving diversity within advanced and honors courses.
[00:13:02.540]Recently, Zayn was among 104 student delegates
[00:13:06.000]from across the nation selected
[00:13:07.530]for the 60th Annual U.S. Senate Youth Program.
[00:13:11.450]Please join us in giving a warm round of applause to Zayn.
[00:13:15.041](audience applauding)
[00:13:21.750]After we're done with the panel portion of today,
[00:13:25.160]you'll have the opportunity to ask questions
[00:13:27.340]either by stepping up to the microphone,
[00:13:29.540]or you can submit questions in advance
[00:13:32.680]by texting ENT918
[00:13:36.150]to the number 22333.
[00:13:40.040]You can also go online to pullev.com/ent918.
[00:13:46.320]There should be flyers posted around the area
[00:13:49.530]if you need that information as tonight goes on.
[00:13:55.320]The first question we will be asking tonight
[00:13:57.990]is what is performative activism?
[00:14:00.620]How can you spot it?
[00:14:02.410]Why might it be potentially dangerous and counterproductive?
[00:14:05.940]And do you think the rise of social media
[00:14:07.740]has benefited marginalized communities?
[00:14:10.160]Or how has it played into performative activism?
[00:14:13.490]Mina, I'd love for you to start.
[00:14:16.840]All right, so hello everyone.
[00:14:18.830]Again, thank you for having me.
[00:14:21.420]And this question is a loaded question, right?
[00:14:24.400]So I think that performative activism is the surface level
[00:14:29.550]of activism that you can potentially do,
[00:14:33.020]whether that be visual affirmations
[00:14:35.920]or support to the community,
[00:14:40.030]refraining of information.
[00:14:41.980]But all of that,
[00:14:43.410]if it's not followed by action pieces,
[00:14:46.680]those are performative activism.
[00:14:50.430]So if there's no significant impact,
[00:14:53.830]because of the action that you're doing,
[00:14:56.210]that is performative activism.
[00:14:59.050]So when it comes to social media,
[00:15:01.510]I believe it's very counterproductive
[00:15:03.870]when you're just resharing information
[00:15:06.120]and then you're not doing anything to follow up on that.
[00:15:10.590]It's not impacting the community,
[00:15:12.950]it's not benefiting them in whatsoever.
[00:15:15.820]All you're doing is sort of getting the education
[00:15:19.470]and spreading the information,
[00:15:21.600]but you're not actually being allied
[00:15:25.210]to this particular community if you're not following up
[00:15:29.220]with steps to benefit the community.
[00:15:33.220]So I'll leave it at that.
[00:15:39.356]Anyone else?
[00:15:41.450]I think I'd like to add to that as well.
[00:15:43.740]In the discussion,
[00:15:45.370]or when things are brought up
[00:15:46.980]in the indigenous community a lot of people are like,
[00:15:49.197]"Yeah, let's talk about their history,
[00:15:51.630]let's bring up Christopher Columbus, let's do that."
[00:15:54.680]And then go home and sleep at night
[00:15:56.440]and then that's it,
[00:15:58.320]like random Tuesday afternoon conversation.
[00:16:01.840]I feel like a lot of people tend to forget that
[00:16:04.650]because indigenous people are put into this box
[00:16:07.960]of like us living in 1492 still,
[00:16:11.030]that conversations don't need to continue to happen,
[00:16:13.570]which in reality, they need to happen,
[00:16:16.960]I would say even more often than most
[00:16:19.590]because we're so forgotten and our history is so forgotten.
[00:16:23.900]I always like to say
[00:16:24.750]that colonization was a moment in our history,
[00:16:27.670]it wasn't the end of our history.
[00:16:29.590]And people tend to think
[00:16:31.550]that's when our history ended was in 1492,
[00:16:33.930]which it hasn't 'cause I'm sitting right here, so.
[00:16:39.128](audience applauding)
[00:16:43.830]I guess I can sort of add to that.
[00:16:46.700]I guess I would say that performative activism
[00:16:48.810]is sort of like a shallow investment
[00:16:51.150]in a lot of the work that people on the stage have done.
[00:16:55.710]It's typically appropriated for personal benefit.
[00:16:59.900]I think that it's something that's especially pertinent
[00:17:02.320]that we've seen with the rise
[00:17:04.700]of quote-unquote cancel culture,
[00:17:07.330]the need to repost everything
[00:17:09.030]that we see on social media, fake wokeness.
[00:17:14.260]And I think that although social media
[00:17:16.980]definitely has its benefits
[00:17:19.110]in particularly highlighting the violence
[00:17:22.490]that minorities face that is typically undiscussed
[00:17:26.120]within traditional media platforms,
[00:17:29.330]it easily can become sort of trivialized
[00:17:33.931]in trivializing important issues,
[00:17:36.830]or the lived experiences of people of color
[00:17:40.240]into a hashtag or a trend.
[00:17:42.740]And I think that that's something that we've seen
[00:17:45.000]with Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate
[00:17:47.570]that we're sort of losing the meaning in our words.
[00:17:51.060]And it's just kind of becoming a trend.
[00:17:57.890]That was awesome.
[00:17:59.900]Moving on to our next question.
[00:18:01.890]You've all done important and notable work,
[00:18:04.720]explain something you've done, what motivated you,
[00:18:08.220]what the results were and your personal mission or angle.
[00:18:12.470]Zayn, I'd love for you to start.
[00:18:14.730]Yeah, thank you, Meyri.
[00:18:16.410]So what was kind of mentioned is a lot of my activism work
[00:18:19.770]is sort of come at the intersection of education.
[00:18:24.000]So that's been both through
[00:18:27.450]this sort of group that I'm in
[00:18:29.870]at the district level that meets with administrators
[00:18:33.370]and sort of shapes educational decision making
[00:18:35.630]and educational policy,
[00:18:37.740]both within Lincoln public schools,
[00:18:39.580]as well as within the State of Nebraska.
[00:18:42.940]A specific event that I can sort of pinpoint to is,
[00:18:46.730]an internship that I've had
[00:18:48.030]that has really shaped my decision making
[00:18:50.410]and my sort of perception around these issues.
[00:18:54.300]And that has been my equity curriculum development intern
[00:18:57.030]with the CLC programs.
[00:18:59.100]So it's an opportunity that started
[00:19:02.310]in October of last year, if I remember.
[00:19:05.030]And I knew that I wanted to do something
[00:19:07.040]within terms of equity and curriculum,
[00:19:08.970]but I didn't really know necessarily how to fuse the two.
[00:19:12.220]And so I was actually approached
[00:19:13.850]by two curriculum specialists who are actually here today.
[00:19:17.890]And they, what sort of developed
[00:19:21.250]or how the internship sort of developed,
[00:19:23.460]was creating workshop materials for staff
[00:19:28.340]and site community coordinators for after school programs.
[00:19:32.190]And what we had initially intended was
[00:19:35.390]for them to sort of take the reins
[00:19:36.890]and I kind of be in the backseat
[00:19:38.210]and developing the material,
[00:19:39.740]but what we saw was that me and a small group
[00:19:42.980]of other students had really taken the initiative,
[00:19:45.750]in not only forming the materials,
[00:19:47.300]but in presenting them in a very engaging way.
[00:19:50.160]And the first training we had had I believe 60 participants
[00:19:55.800]and this was for a three hour training
[00:19:57.400]on a Saturday morning.
[00:19:58.810]So that was a really good turnout.
[00:20:01.590]And the feedback was so positive for us
[00:20:04.540]that it actually spurred three more trainings of its kind
[00:20:07.680]that are still being developed
[00:20:09.150]and a few more that are still being developed.
[00:20:11.470]And was sort of the first time that I saw the benefits
[00:20:14.760]that I reaped really from the investment that I had put in.
[00:20:19.052](audience applauding)
[00:20:23.830]I'm gonna go off that a little bit.
[00:20:27.030]Like said in my introduction,
[00:20:28.740]I'm the Student Body President at UNL right now,
[00:20:31.190]but my activism didn't start there
[00:20:33.050]or and it's not gonna end there.
[00:20:35.270]A lot of my needs and the things that I've done
[00:20:39.240]within my own community have been with the ideals
[00:20:42.450]and the problems and the issues that black, brown,
[00:20:45.060]and indigenous students have been telling this university
[00:20:47.460]for a very, very long time
[00:20:49.720]and within our own communities.
[00:20:51.870]So it's always, always, always with my community's needs
[00:20:56.350]at the forefront and how I can address them,
[00:20:58.720]and how their needs can be implemented
[00:21:01.690]into policy and actions.
[00:21:04.697]So whether that was the BSU care initiative
[00:21:07.120]in the middle of the pandemic
[00:21:08.230]or the critical race theory debate
[00:21:10.140]that we see raving this country.
[00:21:13.350]Understanding that the people that are going to be affected
[00:21:16.410]by the silence and erasure are black people,
[00:21:20.480]are brown people, are indigenous people.
[00:21:23.370]So that's really what, I don't wanna say it motivates me
[00:21:26.420]because I understand that
[00:21:28.570]if I'm not doing the work a lot of the times,
[00:21:31.180]no one else will be doing the work
[00:21:32.940]that that perspective will be silenced and not addressed.
[00:21:36.150]So I don't wanna say it motivates me,
[00:21:39.480]I dunno what the word is, but,
[00:21:42.600]there's a duty that I feel that I have
[00:21:44.847]and a duty that I learned from my parents,
[00:21:47.310]from people within my community.
[00:21:50.040]And honestly, it's just ingrained in black culture
[00:21:52.540]that we uplift each other,
[00:21:54.490]we amplify each other's voices
[00:21:57.130]and we're always addressing each other's needs.
[00:22:02.661](audience applauding)
[00:22:07.730]I also wanna go based on just my experience
[00:22:11.980]as a first generation college student.
[00:22:13.810]I ultimately wanted to be that person
[00:22:15.900]that I unfortunately did not have growing up in the Midwest.
[00:22:22.890]I am from Minneapolis which some people look at us,
[00:22:25.880]one of the most diversities in the Midwest.
[00:22:28.630]But in reality like if you don't like outgrow yourself,
[00:22:32.790]you really lose those opportunities to be able
[00:22:34.990]to learn more about yourself.
[00:22:36.760]One of the events opportunities that I was able
[00:22:40.210]to give my group, Unite, was the opportunity to go to Genoa,
[00:22:44.600]which is historically a U.S. boarding school.
[00:22:48.530]This one ran by the government,
[00:22:50.050]it was not through the church.
[00:22:51.630]So those two are a little bit different.
[00:22:54.320]Going there and seeing
[00:22:55.890]that they have only preserved one building
[00:22:59.310]out of the entire town.
[00:23:00.820]The town of Genoa for those who don't know,
[00:23:02.730]was actually made for this boarding school.
[00:23:05.940]There was about 15 buildings on the land
[00:23:08.280]and they would have a train came through,
[00:23:10.560]and it would drop off kids.
[00:23:12.220]When we were there we actually found out that
[00:23:15.070]they did not keep death records
[00:23:16.710]of the students that were there.
[00:23:18.750]They kept records of them coming in,
[00:23:20.300]but they did not write down when they died, how they died.
[00:23:24.460]We do have a member within Unite
[00:23:26.210]who does a little bit more research
[00:23:27.830]within that and come to find out,
[00:23:29.600]there was a student that was hit by that train.
[00:23:31.760]There was no record of it,
[00:23:33.500]there was no acknowledgement of this student,
[00:23:36.130]don't know the name of them.
[00:23:37.610]So it's just things like that and understanding
[00:23:39.270]that our history is continuously being erased.
[00:23:43.220]Going there and seeing all of these people
[00:23:44.910]who do not look like me, do not look like my peers,
[00:23:47.860]and they don't understand,
[00:23:49.330]or choose not to understand the town that they live in,
[00:23:52.600]just fuels a fire within me
[00:23:54.730]that is like wanting to scream at their face like,
[00:23:57.030]do you not get why you're able to live there?
[00:24:00.100]And that fire just like makes me realize
[00:24:03.040]that I have a mission till the day I take my last breath
[00:24:05.710]to make people realize that I'm here.
[00:24:08.570]I'm gonna be here. My people were here.
[00:24:12.276](audience applauding)
[00:24:18.231]All right, so I think I'll give a quick highlight
[00:24:21.530]of like two of my work,
[00:24:23.770]because I feel like it's speaks a lot
[00:24:25.700]to sort of my positionality and my identity.
[00:24:29.130]So really quickly, like it was mentioned on my intro,
[00:24:33.410]I created this resource guide
[00:24:36.690]after the Atlanta shooting,
[00:24:39.000]and it really sort of sparked up sort of conversation
[00:24:43.880]and sort of providing this healing space for Asians,
[00:24:48.560]to sort of unpack the trauma
[00:24:50.960]and just share their experience with other Asians.
[00:24:55.100]So we had a special edition Dish it Up,
[00:24:58.710]not through my office unfortunately,
[00:25:02.320]but we ended up me,
[00:25:05.410]and this particular graduate student
[00:25:07.410]ended up just spending hours
[00:25:09.440]of our time planning, coming through
[00:25:12.520]with marketing materials and email campaigns
[00:25:16.120]and like newsletters and that kind of stuff.
[00:25:18.710]It was very traumatizing for us.
[00:25:21.110]Unfortunately, we didn't have the space
[00:25:23.020]to unpack the emotions for ourselves,
[00:25:25.780]but we were able to do that for other people.
[00:25:29.400]So this sort of came as a reactionary step
[00:25:33.230]after the shooting we had this sort
[00:25:35.590]of discussion healing space for everyone,
[00:25:38.850]about 200 some people showed up, everyone shared,
[00:25:42.100]there was a lot of crying involved.
[00:25:44.020]And even though in Nebraska doesn't have
[00:25:48.170]a lot of Asian population,
[00:25:50.170]but it really spoke
[00:25:51.580]to the fact that people needed that space.
[00:25:54.650]So following that, we sort of organized the vigil
[00:25:58.000]to like remember the folks who had died
[00:26:02.315]and also follow up with that resource guide,
[00:26:05.650]which it was the collective thing.
[00:26:09.360]Activism doesn't stand from just one person,
[00:26:12.750]it's all a community.
[00:26:14.890]So everyone dropped in like trainings,
[00:26:17.940]protest that was happening,
[00:26:19.340]bystander intervention tips,
[00:26:20.960]and all those different stuff in a google document,
[00:26:24.370]and people can refer it and attend these different things
[00:26:27.900]when they needed to and when they were wanting to.
[00:26:31.330]Another thing that speaks onto my identity
[00:26:34.470]as an international student,
[00:26:36.510]we sort of get into this label of international student
[00:26:39.670]when we moved to a country
[00:26:41.770]when we are seeking education, right?
[00:26:44.810]And when I first came here, I felt a lot of that.
[00:26:51.320]We pay tuition fees with our triple amount
[00:26:54.600]of normal college students.
[00:26:58.330]We don't get regular advising,
[00:27:01.860]we need special advising.
[00:27:05.397]We only have access to student health insurance,
[00:27:09.170]and then just the discrimination and hate
[00:27:11.790]that international students face is just way beyond.
[00:27:15.040]So I co-founded an International Student Advisory Board
[00:27:19.640]at the university,
[00:27:20.800]and we is sort of advocate
[00:27:25.010]for international students.
[00:27:26.110]We uplift their points,
[00:27:30.750]their voices.
[00:27:32.820]We've now created career development,
[00:27:36.720]professional developments for international students.
[00:27:39.570]Now international graduate students have orientation,
[00:27:42.720]because they did not have orientation before this.
[00:27:46.990]So yes, just little steps,
[00:27:49.130]there's no particular end goal to this,
[00:27:51.100]maybe an equitable space
[00:27:52.180]where international students would be an end goal,
[00:27:55.187]but it is a long process.
[00:27:59.152](audience applauding)
[00:28:06.200]The next question is, how did you process
[00:28:09.000]and accept your own development of racial identity?
[00:28:12.830]Batoul, would you like to start?
[00:28:14.850]Yeah, so I reflected on this question a lot
[00:28:19.240]and just to be very honest and transparent with you all,
[00:28:24.520]I think understanding my own racial identity
[00:28:28.690]was in a result when I was different.
[00:28:34.490]I will never forget the first time I was called a nigga,
[00:28:37.550]I will never forget the first time someone touched my hair,
[00:28:40.790]and told me it was so different.
[00:28:43.080]I will never forget the first time someone told me
[00:28:45.300]their parents told them they can't play
[00:28:47.070]with kids that look like me.
[00:28:48.920]It was in those incidences and in those situations
[00:28:52.410]that I understood that I was different,
[00:28:54.400]that there are stereotypes that there was,
[00:28:56.800]I didn't understand institutional racism
[00:28:59.220]at the age of seven but I started to understand
[00:29:02.410]that there was something out there
[00:29:04.980]that was telling me that I was different,
[00:29:06.530]that I wasn't good enough that I shouldn't be in school,
[00:29:09.860]that I'm not as smart as my peers.
[00:29:12.740]And so I think really since the summer of 2020,
[00:29:16.820]I've really tried to celebrate my blackness more.
[00:29:19.473]I've really tried to celebrate my identity,
[00:29:21.980]not only as a Sudanese woman and as an immigrant,
[00:29:25.180]and as a black woman but celebrating all my excellence,
[00:29:28.170]that I am smart, that I'm intelligent,
[00:29:30.692]that I'm beautiful,
[00:29:32.960]that I come from generations and generations
[00:29:36.160]of black women who have been building movements.
[00:29:41.490]So it was upon reflection of when I was wronged,
[00:29:46.520]when I was told I was different, when I was humiliated,
[00:29:50.860]that I understood what the impact of race had on society.
[00:29:57.270]And it's really disappointing going back
[00:29:59.110]to the critical race theory debate.
[00:30:02.920]These incidences didn't happen,
[00:30:04.850]didn't have a threshold for me, right?
[00:30:06.820]It was like the minute I was no longer
[00:30:09.150]in the comfort of my parents' home.
[00:30:11.580]And the idea that black children learned this
[00:30:13.830]from a very young age,
[00:30:15.040]and yet we are so, so, so willing
[00:30:17.840]to protect white children,
[00:30:19.810]from a reality that we face every single day.
[00:30:24.800]I remember the first time I visited Sudan
[00:30:27.040]as a conscious adult, I was probably like 13.
[00:30:29.940]I thought I was so cool.
[00:30:32.690]And I remember coming back, and the first week I came back,
[00:30:36.170]I realized that there was a tension on my shoulders
[00:30:39.380]and a burden that had been lifted when I was there.
[00:30:41.770]And I realized it was because I didn't feel
[00:30:44.180]that I was gonna be attacked at any moment.
[00:30:46.280]I didn't feel that I needed to fear for my life.
[00:30:49.100]I didn't feel that I needed to defend myself
[00:30:51.510]in my classrooms or in my communities.
[00:30:55.134]And to summarize it, that's when I realized
[00:30:58.710]that black is beautiful, that black is powerful,
[00:31:01.820]that upon generations of oppression,
[00:31:05.060]and pain, and violence,
[00:31:06.700]black people still come at the end
[00:31:08.420]with abundance of black love,
[00:31:11.240]pouring into each other,
[00:31:12.370]and pouring into our communities at all times, so, yeah.
[00:31:17.151](audience applauding)
[00:31:24.740]I'd like to touch base on,
[00:31:27.040]understanding my racial identity.
[00:31:29.400]We joke around a lot in Unite
[00:31:31.380]where we have a moccasin on one foot
[00:31:33.277]and a Nike shoe on the other.
[00:31:34.910]And I feel that really touches to that understanding
[00:31:37.820]of the way we lived our life.
[00:31:41.380]Historically women were the ones uplifting our men.
[00:31:45.430]Yeah, men were out there getting our food, thanks
[00:31:49.140]I'm not hungry tonight.
[00:31:50.130]But at the end, specifically to my tribe,
[00:31:53.350]women made all the decisions.
[00:31:55.660]We made the choices that were to keep us alive
[00:31:58.720]or would be the end of us,
[00:32:00.670]and understanding that was a big, big burden.
[00:32:05.280]As you said, you had burdens and from a young age,
[00:32:08.670]you're also taught that like, you need to make that choice.
[00:32:11.340]Are you gonna live that traditional way?
[00:32:13.797]Are you gonna live that colonized way?
[00:32:16.960]I personally live that colonized way up until college.
[00:32:20.810]I think my first week I am a buffet scholar
[00:32:23.530]and we have had some sort of meeting or something
[00:32:25.700]and she was a nice young lady,
[00:32:29.200]obviously came from a small town she said,
[00:32:31.500]but the first question was my parents pay
[00:32:33.930]for your schooling, right?
[00:32:35.730]As if I don't work hard for my scholarships
[00:32:38.220]and I don't work hard for my money.
[00:32:39.920]And that's something I'm always reiterating
[00:32:42.240]to my members, reiterating to myself,
[00:32:43.990]my money is just as green as yours.
[00:32:46.240]You know what I mean?
[00:32:47.073]And I think people, how do I word this?
[00:32:51.420]I think trynna to understand that
[00:32:52.980]and try to put that in a form
[00:32:54.240]that I deserve to be
[00:32:56.040]in the spot that I am is worthwhile.
[00:33:01.874]Yeah, I just am proud of what I do.
[00:33:05.141](audience applauding)
[00:33:11.850]I guess kind of from an immigrant perspective.
[00:33:15.140]So I grew up as someone without legal status
[00:33:18.820]for a really long time,
[00:33:21.580]and I'm still not a citizen yet.
[00:33:23.580]I'm actually the only non-citizen in my family of five.
[00:33:27.150]We're in the process, but you know how long that takes.
[00:33:30.780]And I guess that sort of even now like
[00:33:33.530]with all of the work that I do,
[00:33:34.650]it still sort of generates feelings of misbelonging,
[00:33:38.050]or feelings of displacement.
[00:33:39.450]And I know that those are definitely feelings
[00:33:41.380]that are shared by a lot of individuals,
[00:33:46.190]individuals of color who maybe aren't represented
[00:33:48.300]in the media that they see or in the literature
[00:33:50.770]that they read or the curriculum that they're exposed to.
[00:33:54.650]And so while my friends were saying,
[00:33:58.310]what high schools they were gonna go to
[00:33:59.780]and careers they wanted,
[00:34:01.070]that was never something that I could be certain of.
[00:34:03.550]It was never something that I had the privilege of doing.
[00:34:06.870]And that was something
[00:34:07.790]that I always had to grow up cognizant of.
[00:34:09.500]And a lot of the reason
[00:34:12.260]why I've sort of taken,
[00:34:15.630]sort of taken the initiative
[00:34:16.860]within education specifically is because a lot
[00:34:19.000]of my experiences of misbelonging happened
[00:34:22.050]within educational settings.
[00:34:23.796]So, when I brought school lunch
[00:34:26.800]or when I brought lunch from home,
[00:34:28.430]I was stared at or in school pictures,
[00:34:30.570]I looked visibly different from everyone else.
[00:34:33.470]I had a different last name.
[00:34:35.300]And so there were always like indicators
[00:34:37.840]that I had a sense of difference
[00:34:40.500]if that kind of makes sense.
[00:34:41.740]And so those are definitely feelings
[00:34:44.550]that are shared by a lot of students of color
[00:34:46.340]who will always feel a little bit different
[00:34:49.610]from their white counterparts.
[00:34:52.690]And so a lot of what I've been doing is specifically
[00:34:55.720]within terms of education
[00:34:57.010]and curriculum reform to ensure that students,
[00:35:00.750]my siblings have different experiences
[00:35:02.610]than what I grew up with.
[00:35:05.554](audience applauding)
[00:35:12.070]So to talk about my racial identity,
[00:35:14.500]I also feel like I have to talk about my ethnic identity.
[00:35:17.540]So I'll do a really quick, spill about it, I guess.
[00:35:22.820]So I am Malaysian-Indian, Southeast Asian from Malaysia.
[00:35:28.930]So I grew up in a country that has three primary races.
[00:35:34.880]So this country is known for its diversity,
[00:35:39.850]but trust me, it's a very surface level diversity.
[00:35:44.300]I went to a primary school, which is Tamil,
[00:35:47.940]which means that I spoke my mother tongue,
[00:35:52.520]which meant that I spoke to my grandparents,
[00:35:56.455]my parents in Tamil.
[00:35:57.960]So that is my first language.
[00:36:00.440]So for me to come to the United States,
[00:36:04.460]it was obviously a struggle
[00:36:06.230]because I'm very insecure about my English.
[00:36:08.900]English is my third language, y'all.
[00:36:11.780]And for me to come here and then suddenly lose touch
[00:36:16.420]with my identity was really difficult.
[00:36:19.700]I spoke it, wrote it,
[00:36:23.370]I was dancing Indian traditional dances,
[00:36:27.940]I ate Indian like food, like good food with my hands.
[00:36:33.280]So for me to come in here
[00:36:34.550]and suddenly get introduced with knives and forks,
[00:36:39.100]and no rice with all your cuisines,
[00:36:42.190]I was mind blown.
[00:36:43.530]So yeah, I think my racial development sort of,
[00:36:49.920]and my ethnic development sort of re-shifted
[00:36:53.100]as I had to learn about sort of Indian communities
[00:36:57.750]at the United States.
[00:36:58.810]So I had to learn exclusionary measures
[00:37:03.450]that were taken to ban Indian immigrants,
[00:37:07.560]the Dot Busters Hate Group,
[00:37:09.100]if y'all know about that at New Jersey,
[00:37:11.730]people were getting shot just
[00:37:13.210]because they were wearing a bindi.
[00:37:15.010]So, and that's why I don't wear a bindi.
[00:37:18.190]So all those different things I had to sort of learn
[00:37:22.070]and sort of unpack and sort of understand
[00:37:25.350]why is this person looking at me weird?
[00:37:27.260]Why is he calling me names
[00:37:31.230]and that kind of stuff.
[00:37:32.180]So yeah, still a learning process.
[00:37:34.550]I don't think I'll ever achieve the development that I need.
[00:37:38.780]But as long as, my immigrant grandmother is still alive
[00:37:44.610]and still passing down knowledge on how to cook
[00:37:46.780]and how to survive and how to still appreciate my Tamilness,
[00:37:51.180]I'm good, I'm solid, yeah.
[00:37:54.661](audience applauding)
[00:38:01.810]So as you all enter spaces
[00:38:04.390]to create change for your communities,
[00:38:07.510]what are some challenges that you face in your work?
[00:38:11.250]Nasia, I'd love for you to go first.
[00:38:13.950]I think one of the biggest things I've come
[00:38:16.510]to realize is the understanding of microaggression.
[00:38:21.430]I really prepared myself to experience this with peers,
[00:38:25.410]especially going to a PWI,
[00:38:28.530]being one of four people of color, not even indigenous,
[00:38:31.350]but one of four people of color.
[00:38:32.287]And like my freshman classes of 200,
[00:38:34.780]like I really expected them to just be outwardly racist
[00:38:38.180]and just ugly people for a lack of better terms.
[00:38:43.280]But I realized it's really the older people,
[00:38:45.620]the people in positions of power,
[00:38:47.570]the people who mentor or advise are the ones
[00:38:51.360]that really have this like hidden animosity almost
[00:38:55.680]towards people of color.
[00:38:56.830]Like they say like, "Yes, I wanna support you."
[00:38:59.590]But in their actions, it tells a different story.
[00:39:03.510]I can think of one where I had
[00:39:05.690]to take a multicultural education class.
[00:39:08.370]And we were learning about boarding schools.
[00:39:11.070]If you don't know the history of boarding schools,
[00:39:13.580]basically the government and churches rounded up
[00:39:16.480]a bunch of indigenous children
[00:39:17.800]and told them they were going on vacation.
[00:39:19.690]Some returned some didn't 15, 20 years down the line.
[00:39:24.070]And his perspective on it was,
[00:39:26.310]it was necessary.
[00:39:27.550]Boarding schools were needed for us,
[00:39:29.700]boarding schools were the only way
[00:39:31.810]that we were going to live in this civilized world.
[00:39:34.850]And to see a professor teaching
[00:39:37.970]a multicultural education class
[00:39:40.130]that are teaching these people in this class,
[00:39:42.410]how to help other students and help other people
[00:39:46.120]become better citizens like hurt.
[00:39:49.520]I think taking that hurt and trying to flip it
[00:39:54.210]into something that wasn't negative,
[00:39:56.140]was also a big stepping stone for me.
[00:39:59.200]It's really easy to be angry all the time.
[00:40:01.300]You can be a hateful person,
[00:40:03.210]but understanding like where I come from
[00:40:05.640]and the way I wanna live my life,
[00:40:07.670]wasn't the way I should have like thought in that moment.
[00:40:11.760]I also think about I'm very empathic.
[00:40:14.360]So I really think about my members of my club,
[00:40:16.700]and the people we trynna reach out to.
[00:40:18.560]A lot of indigenous people don't claim
[00:40:21.090]their indigenous identity.
[00:40:23.160]And a lot of them are battling that,
[00:40:24.770]especially coming to the university,
[00:40:26.890]'cause there's so many groups and opportunities
[00:40:29.160]for people to like embrace who they are
[00:40:31.140]but if they haven't had that prior,
[00:40:33.180]that's a scary thing to understand
[00:40:34.930]or try to even put your foot in.
[00:40:36.890]So microaggressions are gonna be there,
[00:40:39.660]there's gonna be people who say you're one way
[00:40:43.380]because of the way you talk or I've also had it
[00:40:45.620]where people that I was aggressive
[00:40:48.120]because I talk with my hands,
[00:40:49.670]don't know where that came from,
[00:40:50.860]don't know where that idea came from,
[00:40:53.080]but trying to break those but also not stoop down
[00:40:56.830]to where I'm this is what this means.
[00:40:59.540]This is why I do this.
[00:41:00.990]Like I don't got time for that so, yeah.
[00:41:05.622](audience applauding)
[00:41:14.160]I can go.
[00:41:15.375](laughs)
[00:41:16.520]So I think I have lots to say
[00:41:19.410]about this particular question,
[00:41:20.940]so I'm gonna keep it short.
[00:41:22.330]But this work is really tiring y'all,
[00:41:25.460]and typically, this work is done
[00:41:28.610]by individuals with marginalized identities.
[00:41:32.710]So, and whether that be it's because it impacts us more,
[00:41:37.140]whether that be that we are passionate about,
[00:41:40.410]whatever the reason may be,
[00:41:42.130]but typically, statistically, we are doing the work.
[00:41:47.150]And oftentimes we are not compensated for it,
[00:41:51.300]we're behind the scenes doing all these organizing
[00:41:54.930]and all these activism type work,
[00:41:58.280]and people don't realize that.
[00:42:02.290]And it's really difficult
[00:42:04.440]to sort of get appreciated and get recognition
[00:42:08.580]and sort of understand the importance
[00:42:12.170]of the work that you doing,
[00:42:13.360]if no one is gonna recognize it.
[00:42:16.980]And then Nasia, you actually touched a little bit
[00:42:21.240]about rage and anger,
[00:42:23.290]and I feel like I'm a very angry person,
[00:42:26.000]no matter how introverted I am
[00:42:28.400]when it comes to passionate things.
[00:42:30.210]I will speak up and I will use hand gestures
[00:42:34.920]and I will raise my voice.
[00:42:36.980]And I've been called an angry person before.
[00:42:40.920]So I recently attended this talk
[00:42:44.690]where this person, Dr. Brittany Cooper has said,
[00:42:49.227]"Your rage is eloquent rage."
[00:42:51.622]So, use that anger to put it into,
[00:42:56.780]flip it into sort of the work that you're doing,
[00:43:00.090]and don't let the person
[00:43:01.580]who's saying you're angry determine like the work
[00:43:05.040]that you're doing,
[00:43:06.740]all these people know what type of work
[00:43:08.780]that you're doing, so, yeah.
[00:43:12.108](audience applauding)
[00:43:16.160]Can I add to that really quick?
[00:43:17.370]I think another thing that I forgot to mention was like,
[00:43:20.400]being the token person of color in a class,
[00:43:23.560]is one of my biggest like just,
[00:43:26.360]like I am not a teacher, I'm here to learn from you.
[00:43:29.470]So why are you asking me
[00:43:31.700]to teach the class about my people?
[00:43:33.550]Granted thanks for the offer,
[00:43:35.400]but I didn't go to school to be a teacher,
[00:43:37.040]I'm here to get my grade.
[00:43:38.670]As well as like Unite, we're the only indigenous
[00:43:41.760]or native American student group on campus.
[00:43:44.060]So we get a lot of, well, can we just be there to represent?
[00:43:49.510]We need more than that,
[00:43:50.430]we need that professional development,
[00:43:52.330]we need the support to feel
[00:43:54.320]that it is okay to be indigenous in a room,
[00:43:57.000]not just being indigenous in a room to make it look pretty.
[00:44:01.670]If I can just add something to that really quickly,
[00:44:05.140]I would say from like an internal standpoint like,
[00:44:07.630]on the tokenization,
[00:44:09.620]I feel like a lot of people
[00:44:10.590]of color feel like a representational burden,
[00:44:13.770]where like just because I'm Middle Eastern and Muslim,
[00:44:16.860]I have to represent the totality of people
[00:44:19.110]who are Middle Eastern and Muslim.
[00:44:21.100]And obviously that's not the case
[00:44:22.820]because there's diversity within diversity.
[00:44:25.060]And so I think that too often like
[00:44:27.900]too much of the pressure is put on us,
[00:44:29.970]if that kind of makes sense.
[00:44:32.020]And it should sort of be shifted to others attempting
[00:44:37.850]to reconcile with their biases
[00:44:40.790]and their lack of information.
[00:44:45.130]I could also talk about this all day.
[00:44:46.770]So if y'all got time,
[00:44:50.328]I often think about like the barriers that exist already
[00:44:53.430]before I even got to college.
[00:44:55.130]Like the barrier of getting into college,
[00:44:57.350]the systematic and institutional barriers
[00:45:00.380]that black students face to get into the university.
[00:45:03.280]And then the numbers that show up.
[00:45:05.800]Wait, is this working?
[00:45:06.726]Yeah, of course.
[00:45:08.170]Hello, okay.
[00:45:09.060]And then the numbers of the retention
[00:45:11.850]of black students at our university,
[00:45:13.320]the fact that it's 22%,
[00:45:15.360]is embarrassing quite frankly.
[00:45:18.690]So understanding that there's already systems
[00:45:20.940]and things in place to stop me from achieving,
[00:45:23.780]and to stop me from doing this work in the beginning,
[00:45:26.290]is something that in itself deserves an award,
[00:45:29.560]in itself deserves compensation and acknowledgement,
[00:45:33.790]that when I'm scheduling meetings with people
[00:45:35.770]to talk about what they're doing wrong,
[00:45:37.880]they should be thanking me for taking time outta my day,
[00:45:41.070]to come and tell them how to run a university,
[00:45:43.280]like I am 22.
[00:45:44.530]I came here to get a degree.
[00:45:46.240]You know what I'm saying?
[00:45:47.360]So I think that acknowledgement and self needs
[00:45:50.820]to be the starting point of any conversation at all.
[00:45:54.500]If you're not willing to acknowledge that,
[00:45:56.350]then why are we doing the work?
[00:45:57.630]What is this conversation supposed to result from?
[00:46:02.060]On top of that,
[00:46:04.010]I'm the first black Student Body President,
[00:46:05.610]but people often fail to acknowledge
[00:46:07.210]why I'm the first black Student Body President.
[00:46:09.720]Why did it take hundreds of years for us students
[00:46:13.440]to get to this position for a black student
[00:46:15.450]to get to this position?
[00:46:16.880]We've been having black students
[00:46:18.670]at this university since its founding,
[00:46:20.380]why did it take this long?
[00:46:22.100]Those questions were never brought up.
[00:46:23.750]People are quick to celebrate this when,
[00:46:27.250]if I'm not celebrating it,
[00:46:28.640]my community is thinking about, okay, when is the next one?
[00:46:31.640]How can we empower our freshmen?
[00:46:33.530]How can we empower our sophomores and our juniors
[00:46:35.860]within student government right now to understand
[00:46:38.370]that this seat belongs to them as well,
[00:46:40.440]that they too can take up space,
[00:46:42.240]that they too can be revolutionary,
[00:46:44.880]and can do everything they want
[00:46:46.650]because this university belongs to them?
[00:46:49.330]And it's often like Mina said,
[00:46:51.200]it's often the black, brown, and indigenous leaders,
[00:46:53.690]the black, brown, and indigenous student activists,
[00:46:56.050]who are doing this work.
[00:46:57.540]It's not our administrator sadly,
[00:46:59.300]it's not our university officials.
[00:47:00.960]It's the student leaders who mentor generations
[00:47:03.670]and generations and generations of students
[00:47:06.510]so that we can hold these leadership positions,
[00:47:08.400]so that we can continue work.
[00:47:11.090]So all in all, there's a lot of burdens placed on us,
[00:47:15.240]and we're really supposed to be here to graduate,
[00:47:17.040]like I feel like people forget that,
[00:47:18.840]like we really are supposed to be here
[00:47:20.880]to get a bachelor's degree
[00:47:23.050]or whatever we're in, but yeah.
[00:47:27.561](audience applauding)
[00:47:35.490]I'll combine our last two questions into one
[00:47:37.840]to allow for everyone to speak.
[00:47:40.720]In recent years,
[00:47:41.870]we've seen a surge of young people a rising
[00:47:44.040]to the front lines of activism.
[00:47:46.290]Why do you think that is?
[00:47:48.140]Why it important?
[00:47:49.740]And then what advice do you have
[00:47:51.360]for other young people looking to become active?
[00:47:57.120]Is it just anybody?
[00:47:58.120]Yes, anybody can talk.
[00:48:02.980]This is a big question.
[00:48:05.080]Coming from my perspective,
[00:48:06.630]the young people are the reason
[00:48:08.280]why indigenous people are even the minuscule relevant
[00:48:11.230]that we are.
[00:48:12.800]A lot of our elders,
[00:48:13.940]a lot of our parents are still facing that trauma
[00:48:17.680]and still going through their pains
[00:48:20.250]from what happened at boarding school,
[00:48:22.180]what happened on the reservation,
[00:48:23.810]what happens back at home.
[00:48:26.444]when after the fact that a lot of our family units
[00:48:28.750]weren't taught to be a family.
[00:48:30.860]Yes, people have kids in our community but in reality,
[00:48:35.000]the parents might not be raising those kids.
[00:48:36.890]It turns into the grandparents, it turns into the cousins,
[00:48:39.340]it turns into the sisters and the brothers.
[00:48:43.100]And a lot of the, unfortunately a lot of our elders
[00:48:47.350]and adults have that mindset
[00:48:48.820]that children are to be seen and to be heard.
[00:48:51.260]And when you choose to take a different route to that,
[00:48:54.300]then you're looked at as outspoken
[00:48:55.990]or she's doing too much or why does she talk so much?
[00:48:59.880]Why does she have such an attitude?
[00:49:02.000]In reality it's not an attitude,
[00:49:03.550]I'm trying to get us to be in a place
[00:49:05.610]that we can feel comfortable walking through.
[00:49:07.890]So I always say to my younger members
[00:49:09.910]and even people I talk to like,
[00:49:12.170]go against that status club,
[00:49:13.760]be that person that people look
[00:49:15.550]at like damn, she talks too much.
[00:49:16.880]Yeah, I talk too much,
[00:49:17.860]'cause you're gonna hear me like point blank period like.
[00:49:21.280]And questioning the professors,
[00:49:24.200]that was the biggest thing that I challenged myself coming
[00:49:27.310]to a PWY is when a teacher, or administrator,
[00:49:30.840]or advisor says something incorrect, check 'em.
[00:49:34.570]Because at home they're not getting checked,
[00:49:36.990]in the news they're not getting checked,
[00:49:38.650]in the articles are not getting checked.
[00:49:40.370]So whether that be one indigenous person,
[00:49:43.340]or one black person, or one brown person,
[00:49:45.413]at least we're doing it, and yeah.
[00:49:49.502](audience applauding)
[00:49:56.360]People often find it surprising when I tell them
[00:49:59.140]that I was actually a really bad student in high school,
[00:50:01.720]like I got suspended all the time.
[00:50:04.600]And it's only because I had ADHD,
[00:50:06.260]and I couldn't stop talking,
[00:50:07.580]but people thought it was a behavior problem.
[00:50:09.800]So I too was very outspoken
[00:50:12.290]and got in trouble for a lot of the times.
[00:50:14.547]And it honestly wasn't until I got
[00:50:16.250]to the University of Nebraska, Lincoln,
[00:50:18.220]where I met other unspoken people that looked like me,
[00:50:21.740]who celebrated it,
[00:50:22.700]we're like, "Yo, Batoul, you said that?"
[00:50:24.294]I was like, "Yeah, I did."
[00:50:26.520]It was a celebration,
[00:50:27.590]it wasn't seen as a bad or a wrong.
[00:50:30.260]And then I understood that the only people
[00:50:33.520]that are seeing it as bad is because I'm challenging them.
[00:50:36.030]I'm challenging systems,
[00:50:37.130]I'm challenging the way that they view and see education,
[00:50:41.050]and how it should be.
[00:50:42.080]And I think we all understand on the stage
[00:50:43.760]that these systems were never meant to be benefit us.
[00:50:48.210]They were never meant to benefit black, brown,
[00:50:49.930]and indigenous students.
[00:50:51.170]So it really is a duty to speak up,
[00:50:53.320]because our voices are valid.
[00:50:55.390]Oftentimes when people talk about,
[00:50:58.700]making sure the table is filled with diverse perspectives,
[00:51:03.540]I often challenge that and say,
[00:51:04.950]why don't we just bring more seats to the table?
[00:51:07.290]Why is there no more seats at the table?
[00:51:10.060]One person cannot identify or represent one group.
[00:51:13.270]Yes, I am a black woman,
[00:51:14.520]but I'm not a trans black woman,
[00:51:16.150]and I'm not a disabled trans black woman.
[00:51:18.060]There's only one perspective and identity
[00:51:19.820]that I can speak about and understand it,
[00:51:23.040]unless we are, bringing all those seats to the table
[00:51:25.560]and thinking about every single of the human experience,
[00:51:29.680]that's not, the work is not done
[00:51:31.267]and it wouldn't be complete.
[00:51:33.510]So I wanna say that, yes, we've seen an upsurge
[00:51:36.830]since the summer of 2020 of youth being on the streets,
[00:51:39.980]but youth were in the streets all the time.
[00:51:41.860]We've been on the streets since Ferguson, since before that,
[00:51:45.200]it was not until the summer of 2020
[00:51:46.610]that people started paying attention.
[00:51:48.470]And that's something I think that people need
[00:51:50.010]to reckon with and understand,
[00:51:52.030]why do they think that it's been a two year thing?
[00:51:54.100]It hasn't been a two year thing.
[00:51:55.270]We've been saying this for years for generations.
[00:51:58.620]And it didn't stop with me,
[00:52:00.150]and it won't stop with me,
[00:52:01.530]and it didn't begin with me.
[00:52:03.020]So yeah, I just wanna shout out
[00:52:06.050]to all the youth like Zayn,
[00:52:07.460]and I know a cadre at LPS,
[00:52:09.900]like it's very empowering to see that,
[00:52:11.490]'cause I went through LPS
[00:52:12.610]and I wish that I would've been given a platform
[00:52:15.510]to talk about these issues.
[00:52:16.780]So I think it's really important to continue
[00:52:19.040]to give these students a platform,
[00:52:21.820]amplifying them,
[00:52:23.680]and understanding that
[00:52:25.060]what they're saying is not ridiculous,
[00:52:26.712]it's not detention worthy.
[00:52:29.610]You need to hear them, you need to listen,
[00:52:31.150]you won't do better until you start to listen.
[00:52:34.633](audience applauding)
[00:52:41.120]I don't think I can top that,
[00:52:42.730]but I guess I just wanted to add that,
[00:52:45.910]I think that this work is only going
[00:52:49.470]to gain importance and relevance.
[00:52:51.440]So I think especially on social media,
[00:52:55.250]with the rise of hate speech and misinformation,
[00:52:58.950]and just like in this era of post truth,
[00:53:02.080]I think that it's especially important for us to recognize,
[00:53:05.700]that this work is extremely important,
[00:53:08.120]that this work isn't going away,
[00:53:09.970]and especially as you know legislation is shaping
[00:53:14.310]from the older generations to our current generation,
[00:53:17.900]generations that are younger than us up on stage,
[00:53:21.330]that this work has to continue and it will continue.
[00:53:24.280]And I really like what Batoul said,
[00:53:25.590]it doesn't start with us or begin with us.
[00:53:27.477]and it doesn't end with us either.
[00:53:29.891](audience applauding)
[00:53:36.330]I think I'll wrap it up by saying
[00:53:38.730]somewhat of an advice is,
[00:53:41.960]if you wanna become an ally or be allied
[00:53:46.610]to this particular community or cause,
[00:53:49.750]or issue or whatever,
[00:53:52.550]it has to be a continuous thing.
[00:53:55.170]Being ally is just not a status
[00:53:58.830]or a position that you can hold,
[00:54:00.420]it's continuous work.
[00:54:02.020]So if you're saying that you're being allied,
[00:54:05.700]or you have allyship to the LGBTQ plus community,
[00:54:09.560]make sure that you're showing up,
[00:54:11.220]make sure that you're having action steps
[00:54:14.110]behind all those different, behind the cause,
[00:54:18.490]and make sure that you are providing the space
[00:54:22.168]for folks who really need it.
[00:54:25.240]Typically a lot of times when doing activism work,
[00:54:28.730]we also see a lot of people taking up space,
[00:54:32.010]and when it's not necessary, don't take up space,
[00:54:36.720]let other people have that space and amplify their voices,
[00:54:40.650]rather than you amplifying their voices for them.
[00:54:44.910]They don't need that,
[00:54:46.400]they don't need that.
[00:54:47.860]And yeah, I'll sum it up.
[00:54:51.880](audience applauding)
[00:54:58.936]We'll now be moving to the Q and A portion of this night.
[00:55:05.640]I'm looking at the questions
[00:55:08.120]that you have all gladly sent in.
[00:55:10.590]And I wanted to combine two of them
[00:55:12.970]that I really like for you panelists.
[00:55:16.550]The first is how do you combat the sense
[00:55:19.160]of imposter syndrome while fighting for change?
[00:55:22.900]And I am adding this and preparing another question
[00:55:27.180]that was asked and saying,
[00:55:28.250]how do you use the feelings you have
[00:55:30.770]to advocate for communities that you don't belong to,
[00:55:33.480]or don't strongly identify with as much?
[00:55:39.050]Any of you can start.
[00:55:41.660]Can I get a quick definition on imposter syndrome?
[00:55:44.200]Yes, it says feeling like you don't belong,
[00:55:47.560]can't make a difference, et cetera.
[00:55:52.980]I think I can tackle the second part
[00:55:54.770]of that question a little bit.
[00:55:57.410]So I feel like us as people of color
[00:56:00.650]and as student activists we can sort of feel the burden
[00:56:03.910]to represent not only ourselves,
[00:56:05.640]but also other groups, right?
[00:56:07.090]So we are diversity,
[00:56:08.610]so we must represent all that is diverse.
[00:56:11.610]And so I think that something that,
[00:56:14.210]that that's definitely a challenge for us
[00:56:16.302]and something that I think we have to grapple with,
[00:56:18.600]especially in positions of power
[00:56:21.210]that maybe traditionally haven't been held
[00:56:23.370]by marginalized individuals.
[00:56:26.050]And so I think that's something that I sort of,
[00:56:30.460]sort of try to remind myself is,
[00:56:33.690]that a lot of this work is somewhat intersectional,
[00:56:36.600]that although I may not be able
[00:56:38.270]to represent other individuals with my same struggle,
[00:56:41.800]there are similar struggles that exist out there
[00:56:43.810]that I can form coalition groups with,
[00:56:45.830]or that I can find myself in,
[00:56:48.150]or that I can find representation in.
[00:56:50.540]And so even if my specific struggle
[00:56:53.760]isn't represented usually,
[00:56:57.240]there is a group or an individual
[00:56:59.780]that has a similar or shared experience solely
[00:57:03.420]from existing in an environment
[00:57:06.530]where they have to assimilate,
[00:57:07.750]or where they have to erase part of themselves,
[00:57:11.530]even if it's not my exact experience.
[00:57:15.363]I think I wanna add on to that with the aspect
[00:57:19.340]of when the George Floyd,
[00:57:23.880]I don't even know the big enough word
[00:57:25.780]to encapsulate that event, I guess,
[00:57:28.760]for like a better terms is going on.
[00:57:30.640]I went into a really dark place being like,
[00:57:33.870]well, native people are being killed all the time,
[00:57:37.400]we're going missing all the time,
[00:57:38.740]why aren't we being spoken for?
[00:57:40.300]Why aren't we being put up on a screen just as much,
[00:57:43.670]but I had to really reel that back and understand,
[00:57:46.510]like you mentioned it's intersectional.
[00:57:50.280]I really have to flip it and talk to my black peers
[00:57:53.570]and be like, what can I do to help you
[00:57:55.530]so you don't feel the way I feel that you guys are going
[00:57:58.370]and being spoken about as if you're in the past?
[00:58:01.707]And I feel like that's one of the things
[00:58:03.663]that even within the BIPOC community,
[00:58:06.650]people tend to be like, well, my house is on fire right now,
[00:58:09.240]please sweat it out.
[00:58:10.073]But there are whole apartment complexes on fire,
[00:58:12.710]we gotta put that one out before we do ourselves.
[00:58:16.180]And understanding our placement within ourselves
[00:58:19.180]and what we do for other people,
[00:58:21.930]also was a thing I had to learn.
[00:58:23.910]And the imposter syndrome,
[00:58:25.340]which is a new thing I learned today,
[00:58:27.920]understanding like how I could fit,
[00:58:31.190]has been a challenge within,
[00:58:33.270]like I said earlier, moccasin on one foot Nike shoe
[00:58:36.270]on the other will always be what I have to go through.
[00:58:40.760]Powwows were not legal until 1976 ish.
[00:58:45.866]as well as boarding schools are still around.
[00:58:48.860]My dad got a letter that he had to go to a boarding school
[00:58:51.350]when he was 18.
[00:58:52.360]He was born in 1973.
[00:58:54.070]So just to understand that those relics
[00:58:56.760]and those things that happen are still here,
[00:58:59.280]they're still on paper, they're still happening.
[00:59:02.040]I just don't think that I will ever be that person
[00:59:04.540]to try to fit in or assimilate me myself,
[00:59:06.810]but I have to understand
[00:59:07.643]that other people don't have the strength
[00:59:09.440]that I do or the mental,
[00:59:11.890]understanding of themselves and their history
[00:59:14.110]to be able to push back on that, yeah.
[00:59:20.664](audience applauding)
[00:59:26.410]Something I had struggled with a lot and continue
[00:59:30.110]to this day is the respectability politics
[00:59:33.050]of what it means to look professional,
[00:59:34.900]how my hair should be,
[00:59:35.990]how I should dress and who I'm trying to be acceptable to.
[00:59:40.430]So understanding that the system is white supremacy,
[00:59:45.730]that's the system that makes me feel inferior,
[00:59:47.780]that makes me feel like I'm not doing enough.
[00:59:50.560]A lot of the times I feel like we as black people,
[00:59:54.540]we're taught that we can't be outspoken
[00:59:57.080]about our celebrations we have to be humble.
[00:59:59.240]I'm gonna stop doing that.
[01:00:00.550]I'm gonna take I power back,
[01:00:01.730]and I'm gonna tell y'all all the things I did,
[01:00:03.660]I'm gonna be like, yeah, my resume got this.
[01:00:05.290]Because a lot of the times I'm talking to my peers
[01:00:08.010]who feel that they can talk to me a certain way,
[01:00:10.380]or feel that their presence can take up more space
[01:00:13.140]in a room than mine simply because they know
[01:00:15.710]that the space was meant for them.
[01:00:18.000]So understanding that I've done more work
[01:00:20.050]for this space to be mine,
[01:00:21.530]then you will ever have to do is in itself power,
[01:00:24.800]is in itself a protest.
[01:00:27.630]So this is so weird.
[01:00:30.720]So I wanna say yes, imposter syndrome is something
[01:00:34.250]that I deal with every single day,
[01:00:36.080]but it's also act of protest
[01:00:37.820]to actively every single day look at myself
[01:00:40.320]in the mirror and be like,
[01:00:41.153]you are a badass like you are a queen,
[01:00:44.890]you wake up every single morning
[01:00:46.320]and you do the necessary work.
[01:00:48.160]My mom is here and she would not like to hear this.
[01:00:50.060]Sometimes I skip out on study hours to go to meetings
[01:00:53.510]to make sure I'm serving my community,
[01:00:55.370]to make sure I'm showing up for them.
[01:00:57.760]A lot of the times the moments that make me understand
[01:01:00.740]that the work I've done is necessary
[01:01:02.760]is when a black student comes up to me
[01:01:04.210]and says, "I'm so proud of you.
[01:01:06.880]Thank you for all the work that you've done,
[01:01:08.900]coming to this university and realizing
[01:01:10.500]that my Student Body President is black empowered me in no,
[01:01:15.630]in valuable ways."
[01:01:17.100]It's those moments that I treasure.
[01:01:18.600]And it's those moments that keep me going
[01:01:22.249]when times a are really, really low,
[01:01:23.950]and when the work seems like it's never gonna end
[01:01:26.580]when the work seems too hard.
[01:01:28.660]So at the end of the day,
[01:01:30.010]I'm trying to say that yes, imposter syndrome exists,
[01:01:32.510]but exists because of white supremacy.
[01:01:34.450]And understanding that and understanding
[01:01:36.160]that the needs of my community,
[01:01:38.010]and the service that I've done to my community,
[01:01:40.780]has taken us links is in itself a protest
[01:01:43.920]and celebration of blackness and of us so, yes.
[01:01:48.879](audience applauding)
[01:01:56.720]So kind of going along with what Batoul had mentioned,
[01:02:01.160]I faced imposter syndrome pretty much like every day,
[01:02:04.690]when it, even today, like coming to speak
[01:02:07.360]in this panel today,
[01:02:08.710]I feel like I don't deserve this sort of spotlight,
[01:02:12.380]I don't need to speak on my,
[01:02:15.200]sort of experiences whatsoever.
[01:02:17.780]But I think one thing that has sort of helped me
[01:02:21.460]through with this sort of feeling
[01:02:24.450]that I feel is the community,
[01:02:27.150]that community that you have.
[01:02:30.200]So I have a very small circle of people
[01:02:34.350]that I go to whenever I feel some type of way.
[01:02:37.530]So when I feel like I don't deserve this award,
[01:02:41.100]or when I don't deserve this space,
[01:02:43.190]I go unpack that with some of my conspirators,
[01:02:48.800]with my friends and with my community.
[01:02:51.620]And these are the people,
[01:02:54.644]are the reason why I'm doing this type of work,
[01:02:57.460]why I feel like my voice is valued,
[01:03:00.600]and why my thoughts are important,
[01:03:03.100]and why the actions that I'm doing are making a change,
[01:03:06.510]because they really reinforce that for me.
[01:03:10.010]So yes, huge shout out to them, and yeah.
[01:03:15.702](audience applauding)
[01:03:21.820]Thank you so much for allowing us to be here tonight.
[01:03:24.340]I'll pass over the mic again to Dorsey.
[01:03:28.422](audience applauding)
[01:03:33.400]Again, as Meyri said, thank you for being here.
[01:03:36.210]Let's give our wonderful panelists
[01:03:37.970]and our moderator a round of applause.
[01:03:39.962](audience applauding)
[01:03:47.102]Before we close the event,
[01:03:48.030]I wanna thank the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues
[01:03:50.420]for identifying issues of race and justice as a focus
[01:03:53.010]for these years events.
[01:03:54.560]Thank you to all the student leaders on campus
[01:03:56.380]who have been working hard behind the scenes
[01:03:58.080]to put events like these together.
[01:04:00.200]And now it's time for an exciting announcement.
[01:04:03.190]The winner of a Walkthrough Art Contest,
[01:04:05.990]one student creations featured
[01:04:07.680]at the Walk Together Showcase has been selected
[01:04:09.790]for the art contest.
[01:04:11.520]The winner receiving private lessons at the Luck Center,
[01:04:14.390]and their creation will be painted on the mural
[01:04:16.410]at the Luck Center on May 7th.
[01:04:18.910]Our winner is Pressley Shell Hayes,
[01:04:20.610]the seventh grader from Mickle Middle School,
[01:04:23.200]for an acrylic painting on canvas titled Marsha P. Johnson.
[01:04:26.710]Pressley, please come here on stage
[01:04:28.730]and receive your certificate.
[01:04:30.527](audience applauding)
[01:04:55.400]I wanna emphasize that Pressley did beat out
[01:04:57.900]a lot of high schoolers for that.
[01:04:59.688](audience applauding)
[01:05:05.640]A final thank you for all of you joining us tonight.
[01:05:08.380]I hope you're all able to connect with our panelist stories,
[01:05:11.220]and think about racial justice,
[01:05:12.690]and your allyship in new ways.
[01:05:14.800]Lastly, I invite you to the next E.N. Thompson Forum event
[01:05:18.611]on April 6th, at the Lied Center
[01:05:20.650]with Walter Echo-Hawk an author, attorney,
[01:05:23.260]and well renowned legal scholar who will be,
[01:05:26.040]who will be speaking on reckoning and reconciliation,
[01:05:29.900]on the Great Plains,
[01:05:30.870]healing historic harm caused by conquest and colonization.
[01:05:34.870]Thank you again,
[01:05:35.703]and have a wonderful night.
[01:05:37.029](audience applauding)
[01:05:39.018](upbeat music)

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Forum Youth Panel

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments