RACIAL JUSTICE
On my very first day at Kalamazoo College, in August 2011, a student had gotten on my calendar. This showed a determined initiative, and so I wanted to meet with her. When we met, she said: Dr. Brock, it is a pleasure to meet you. I know you have been hired to teach us how to do social justice “out there,” but we need social justice right here. Our curricular options are limited and limiting. This student was Latinx. A second student came a few days later and said, we need you to hold dialogues on race and racism among students. This student was a Jamaican international student. A month later, there was an incident of hate in one of the dorms. The target of that hate was an Asian American student.
While this may seem distressing to some, what it represented to us was that the ACSJL had an urgent purpose. We began holding discussions on race for students (to which almost all student organizations attended), having dialogues about structural and interpersonal racism on campus, and working on curricular inclusion and social justice issues on the campus. We discovered that under the leadership of the 17th president of Kalamazoo College, Dr. Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran, the College had both begun to recruit clusters of students of color, while also attracting a significantly higher percentage of applicants of color, but had not yet done a critical inventory of what was needed to actually serve these students - in terms of curriculum, mentorship, social life, campus culture, and intellectual leadership.
We did. The ACSJL sent a memo to the President and the Provost urging them to immediately hire more faculty and staff of color. We held workshops for department chairs and faculty to center social justice hiring rubrics; we held racial justice dialogues and anti-racism forums and trainings for students, faculty, and staff. The college had to adapt if indeed it was to be a socially just campus. Of course, like most predominantly white institutions, pushing for such change was met with resistance. But it also nurtured and developed a core group of students, faculty and staff who were passionate about building a more racially just campus. I remember saying to the Provost at the time, that if we don’t transform this campus, and we continue to bring in students of color, then those students, our students, become the shock absorbers of an ill-conceived “diversity” or “justice” experiment.
Thus began the journey you see below. The College went from 22% self-identified faculty of color in 2010/11 to 35% in 2019/20. Self-identified students of color, including international students, moved from 24% in 2010 to 42.55% in 2019/20. As Academic Director, I served on two search committees and worked with the provost on two opportunity hires which resulted in the tenure track appointments of four faculty of color. The ACSJL also hosted regular faculty of color dinners, to share common issues and provide community. They were very well attended. Initially, the administration did not understand why this was important. Later, the provost’s office integrated it into their work.
Largely because of the ED, of the ACSJL, there is now a bias reporting system at the College. Mia Henry, the Executive Director (ED) encouraged the president to create a Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee (DIAC) which brought forward a bias reporting system. DIAC had members from various units on campus, such as the Campus Chaplain, and it was they who proposed the land acknowledgment of the People of the Three Fires, upon whose land the College sits. This acknowledgment is now pronounced at many campus events.
While the ACSJL was not the only factor in the movement for racial justice on campus, we provided leadership, guidance, a focal point, and a sense of urgency.
BANNER IMAGE: ANGELA PASTOR
K College established an Intercultural Center in 2016 after two years of bitter struggle by students.
The ACSJL supported this student movement by providing a safe space for students to meet and test out organizing strategies. Academic Director Dr. Lisa Brock played a pivotal role as a faculty member encouraging faculty to support this effort and ultimately convincing the President to step in more forcefully. This also coincided with a serious racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic cyber attack on the student government.
In May of 2018, students staged a 50th-anniversary action in solidarity with the 1968 founding of the Black Student Organization (BSO).
This action was the result of student research into the history of student activism on campus. In researching and documenting this history, they discovered in the College’s archives that the B.S.O. demands made in 1968 were still largely unmet by the college. They also discovered that a key leader of that 1968 Kalamazoo student movement went on to be a civil rights lawyer and first Black Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. His name was Chokwe Lumumba. The ACSJL supported this effort by providing a safe space for students to meet, hold gatherings, test out organizing strategies, and launch their actions.
ACSJL staff fellow Anne Dueweke used her fellowship to research and write a 160-page manuscript.
The book, An American College: A Racial and Colonial History is due to publish in 2021. ACSJL staff fellow Anne Dueweke used her ACSJL staff fellowship to research the history of K College, deploying a racial and anticolonial lens.
“The fellowship has been absolutely critical to my project of researching and writing a racial and colonial history of Kalamazoo College. The financial support allowed me to hire research assistants, purchase books, travel to interview alumni of color and visit archives and transcribe oral history interviews. Even more important was the support and guidance I received from Mia Henry and Lisa Brock. They encouraged me, guided me toward resources, gave me feedback on my work, and provided a platform to share what I was learning with the community. The fellowship also lent me credibility, which was especially important when approaching alumni of color for interviews. Being able to say that Arcus was supporting the project I believe helped me to establish trust.”
— Anne Dueweke
Anti-racist training, led by the regional Crossroads Antiracism organizing and training affiliate Eliminating Race and Creating/Celebrating Equity, (ERACCE) is now available to faculty, staff, and students each year.
The ACSJL brought ERACCE to campus in 2015, initially not supported by the college as a whole. Now the college underwrites this training and states it is on a path of becoming an anti-racist institution.
“Attending the ERACCE training has changed the way that I see the world and my job.”
— K College Faculty Member
“I attended ERAACE training and it empowered me to take ownership of the world/environment around me. It made me feel like I can make a change and vocalize what I think is right or wrong”
The ACSJL provides training for various sectors of the College.
Pictured: Rhiki Swinton, ACSJL Center Manager (MA Student Development) Trains Student Resident Assistants.
“In terms of impact when it comes to the Anti-Racism RA Training, many RAs said they feel more confident about initiating conversations about race and systemic oppression. They noted the most helpful topic was Compassionate Accountability (and the breakout rooms to talk about it) because it detailed tangible skills to achieve it. In my staff meetings, we tied it back to cancel culture and the importance of asking ‘why’ instead. “
— Erika Perry, M.ED, Area Coordinator, Student Development at Kalamazoo College
On December 5, 2014, the ACSJL led the only Kalamazoo die-in after the police murders of Eric Garner and Mike Brown.
Feeling the pulse of Kalamazoo College and the city community, and joining the thousands of people nationwide, the ACSJL organized the die-in in two days. A question went out on Facebook on December 3rd, a meeting was called on December 4th, to which over 50 people attended. On December 5th, nearly 500 community members participated in the action.
Two regional fellows, Linda Cyperty-Kilborn and Julie Dye host the film More Than a Word, which details the degrading impact of racist language used by sports teams in the US.
“I was already pretty aware of these issues AND I found the program (film, etc) very informative. The movie was excellent as well as the speakers after the movie. Racism is so pervasive and people can be so cruel and insensitive to others...Good Event and FOOD. Great panel! Very good. As someone not focused on sports, I had no idea how the Washington fans used the team's mascot's name. I was shocked. The documentary was very well done and the speakers were knowledgeable and passionate. I like how the film covered both the football fans' perspective and the people who are opposing the R word for sports teams. Great video. I remember the disagreements when I was a teenager (26 now) about the Illini Chiefs but now I understand the importance of the change.”
“Thank you for the flyer on Bill 487. Appreciated the info on the bill being considered in the Senate committee. Very informative and effective. I think I understand better the strong degree to which the sports mascot/naming creates a false, damaging stereotype. The historical background and opinions combined made a very convincing argument. The information I was given is easily reproduced and can be distributed to people in my area. Good to reconnect with community activists.”
Kalamazoo artist David Brink brought his art and the idea to exhibit it at the ACSJL.
Student staff said yes and decided to use it to have discussions about race on campus. They organized a plan to have the doors moved around campus, with a box for comments. They collected the comments and held deliberative dialogues to discuss the exhibition and the comments it elicited.
As a result of criteria developed by ACJL Staff During the construction of the new ACSJL building in 2014–2014, K College required that the general contractor hire people of color as subcontractors on this building project.
"We did not come here for your diversity.
We came here to learn.”
— Jonathan Romero, POSSE 2, K’13
What People are Saying
“The Arcus Center was foundational to my retention and success as a student, scholar, and activist at Kalamazoo College. From the work of fighting for and eventually building a Critical Ethnic Studies department and Intercultural Center—the Arcus Center’s programming as well as the staff gave us a creative physical space to brainstorm with other students and activists about how to make the campus more equitable and accessible for marginalized students. It gave us the space to interact with radical scholars across the world and staff who were invested in my and my peers’ growth. I had the privilege of working at Arcus and found myself there even after my shifts because it was a place that affirmed that I belonged on campus but also was a place I knew fellow students and activists would be to challenge one another to build a campus and community that would be more accepting of students often at the margins and students who had the ideas of dropping out of K cross their minds more than once because the community wasn’t always as welcoming as the College made it seem. I owe an immense thank you to the Arcus Center and the staff for having been able to walk away a critical thinker from K and for being able to always be willing to challenge the status quo in order to fight for what is right and what is just.”
— Cassandra Solis, K‘16
“The Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership is a national treasure. With its unparalleled commitment to praxis (the merging of intellectual engagement with grassroots practice), the Center is a crucial national resource for multiple disenfranchised communities. Under the direction of Dr. Lisa Brock (with Mia Henry), the Center's commitment to transformative justice, radical social change, and political engagement was truly unmatched. Not only did Arcus play a vital role in connecting me to members of the local black activist community (such as those in the local Kalamazoo chapter of Black Lives Matter)—it also provided me with crucial educational resources for my scholarly research. Through the center's unique Activist-in-Residence program I was able to spend two summers in Kalamazoo (free of charge) to pursue writing, research, community engagement and critical reflection. Of the hundreds of centers and programs that I have visited during my career, Arcus is the one I remember most.”
— Dr. Frank L. Roberts, The Black Lives Matter Professor
"My first experience with the ACSJL was at an ERACCE training several years ago which sparked my personal growth journey in social justice...and is an experience for which I'm forever grateful. Being a Native American woman, there was an emotional moment for me at that particular training when during a discussion on indigenous people I was asked my opinion. While I've never been able to recall the question I will never forget that overwhelming moment that was the first time in my life I was asked my opinion on something that related to Native Americans. That training went on to not only help me discover something in myself that has been continuously supported and encouraged by my mentors and peers at the ACSJL, but which in turn has led me to be more aware, active, and vocal in social justice matters."
— Terri Raich, retired K College staff member