Despite the growth of #BlackLivesMatter as a social justice movement addressing visual and institutional inequality, action taken by the University of Missouri (U of M) on the safety of Black students is trivialized at best.
U of M students physically being circled by a monster pickup truck without a licence plate while screeching KKK references strangely did not appear to many as reason for concern. Students who feel uneasy and have requested campus police escorts on and off campus have been denied because their situation apparently lacked severity.
Exams were held as usual as professors encouraged students not to “give into bullies.” The severity of online threats on YikYak, a social media platform, claiming that a student would “stand their ground and shoot every Black person they see,” seemed to cause minimal collective safety planning beyond individual action.
In contrast, Wilfred Laurier University locked down its campus, and suspended all classes when an online bomb threat resulted in the arrest of 22-year-old U.K resident Daniel Ransem. He faces charg.es under the U.K.’s Malicious Communications Act of 1988 for sending electronic messages that result in distress or anxiety with a maximum of an 18-month sentence.
Online threats using the Twitter hashtag #KillFeminists emerged against students and staff in the departments of women and gender studies and sociology at the University of Toronto (U of T). The university was critiqued for their late efforts to contact the affected departments, but nevertheless, the threats led to an investigation, and an eventual security increase at all three campuses. The university urged students in a newsletter to “proceed with caution,” but failed to provide further details about the threats under consultation with the Toronto Police Service.
Eerie parallels exist between the threats at U of T and those acted upon in the École Polytechnique Massacre.
Now, some professors and law enforcement alike choose to dismiss the safety concerns of Black students at U of M. A professor said in an email that U of M has a big campus, and students should not be “paralyzed by fear” by this reality.
These unsympathetic responses may come down to power and privilege. This begs the question, whose right to pursue an education is truly valued? Had this been a threat to the entire student body, could we expect more active precautions being taken?
Dismantling institutionalized white privilege in North America can be an uncomfortable experience. Classroom settings and communities still hold heavy Eurocentric biases. Even the most well-intended allies can enforce the status quo.
It is important to consider which perspective of history is set as the core curriculum in universities, and whose lived experiences can only be pursued as a minor, as in the case of disability studies at Carleton. Highly privileged backgrounds maintain their space in legitimacy, exemplified by U of M’s response to racialized threats of violence. Yet that space is continually challenged with growth and resistance.
The politics of the #BlackLivesMatter movement are continually resonant in North America. Stunning tributes to the Black trans community, as well as victims of police violence, are viciously defaced. In the politics of everyday life, Black students should not be forced to choose between their personal safety and their personal freedom.
For lives to truly matter, this must be acknowledged with surrounding mobilization and support. Stating that all lives matter maintains hierarchical structures that treat the concerns of Black students as only paranoia, while generic threats that target the entire student population are responded to with the utmost urgency.
