What UConn students had to say at today’s Mizzou protest

‘Still dividing into teeny-tiny segregated culture-petty groups, but this is curable. This isn’t as terminal as television prescribes us to believe’

Today, UConn students gathered outside of the Rowe Center for Undergraduate Education in solidarity with the students at the University of Missouri and students across the nation.

Charity Whitehead who opened the protest said: “It is amazing that we all are able to gather here, but it breaks my heart for why we have to be here in the first place, because it is a shame that nationwide we still need to have a protest about racism on campus and about feeling that you don’t belong in a space that you paid to be in.”

Organizers from left to right; Charity Whitehead, Haddiyyah Halima Ali, Julian Rose

These remarks would be echoed by her fellow organizers, along with several other students who would let their voices be heard on Fairfield Way.

Several poets from the UConn group, Poetic Release, spoke on the issues that affected them. Here are some of their most impactful lines.

Michael Jefferson of Poetic Release

“We fell for every single treaty, every civil rights act. Still we’re starving. Still dividing into teeny-tiny segregated culture-petty groups, but this is curable. This isn’t as terminal as television prescribes us to believe.

“Complacency contends, ‘Black lives don’t even matter’, ‘Trans lives don’t even matter’, ‘Women’s rights, bodies, minds, baby-bumps don’t fuckin’ matter’. Bring a clock to every school just to show what really matters.”

Junior Reven Smith of Poetic Release

“Big Brother has come, and he’s watching you sleep. He’s creepin’ in your dreams through the seams of this deceit. He’s seeping through the cream and from our wounds money leaks, how long until the people choose to speak?

“We’re seeing unmanned aircrafts in forbidden air paths, covering up tracks, making excuses for what the system lacks. We need to watch our backs, because once we choose to act our new homes will become a plastic body bag.”

In addition to members of Poetic Release, there were other speakers from several different backgrounds, from Graduate students to faculty members, some of them are featured below:

Eric Cruz López

“I was born in Mexico nineteen years ago and I came to this country twelve years ago. I crossed the border and made it here alive, only to be met with hostility for my race and my tongue. ‘Speak American’ they said, so I did, and I stand here speaking to you without an accent.

“You know what’s hostility? You know what’s systemic oppression? When they make you cry (in school) trying to pronounce E and I (as the phonetics of the two are reversed in English)… and from that moment, my accent was erased from my tongue, my tongue was stolen from me.”

Speaking on the actions of President Susan Herbst, UConn lecturer Brittney Yancy said: “I am not convinced. I am not convinced by the e-mails, I am not convinced by the reports. I am not convinced by 15 to 20 minutes of standing out here with us.

“I am going to call it what it is, because there are people on this campus who are unprotected by the policies that govern this campus. It is unfair, it is disgusting, it is inhumane. Still a year later, after everything that happened last year, that we are still dealing with these same issues, and no program is going to change that. Institutional policy reform will change that… It doesn’t take two years to roll out a diversity reform.”

“We need to change these policies, because as I quote: “In all the investigations that looked at the Rock incident, that there is no university policy on this campus that made what happened to us criminal or violated a policy. That means that these policies don’t protect certain people on this campus… There is a lot that needs to be changed.”

Students gather to listen to faculty speakers

This protest was successful in addressing the concerns of the student population in Storrs. Hopefully this gathering can help gain some inertia for the movement on campus, just as similar gatherings have achieved change at other universities. The protest will be followed by a march organized by the same students, tonight, November 19th at seven o’clock.

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