As humans, we are attracted to specificity of narrative, the story that builds us from the womb and the shared human experiences outside of it.
February is home to the narrative of black Americans. Once props and supporting members in United States history, they now deserve an enduring standing ovation. When this ovation is interrupted, as Americans we should maintain our stand, because black history is our history.
While we all have different narratives, we are intrinsically linked by the pursuit of our nation and those in the past who have worked and sacrificed to build the sovereign nation in which we live. However, due to the past narrative of this nation, solidarity can fall short, as it did on Saturday night.
When hate speech took the forefront during BCU Night, Phillip Warfield confronted the issue in the narrative he has worked to foster at Southern.
Anger, shock and hate are emotions easily acted on, but they rarely accomplish a mutual understanding or resolution. While the words displayed on Snapchat Saturday night should evoke anger, it should not be that anger that writes the narrative for our institutions.
The Accent is charged with delivering the truth to the student body, gathering and culminating a message. As this story is written, it should be one that addresses Afrofuturism, as defined by Dr. Eve Ewing, a professor at the University of Chicago. Afrofuturism is the concept that black people will be in the future. This concept is easily oversimplified, but looking at this from a lens within the United States, black Americans have overcome annihilation and continue to overcome hate and discrimination. Southern should be a bastion in which there is no question as to whether hate speech would come from a student on campus or not.
Afrofuturism, the concept of black people exiting into the future, black students continuing to come to Southern—begging the question, is Southern doing all it can to create an informed and just narrative?
Phillip has worked incredibly hard to bridge the gap and build an inclusive campus, but after this event, the time has come to open an active conversation between administrators and students. The problem is not race, but rather systematic injustices and a lack of education that must be addressed through mutual respect and understanding.