I want to know what the school is doing to combat situations like this from happening again. I'm sure things are going on behind the scenes and maybe changes have been made that I'm unaware of.
This instance was public, but privately racism still occurs. Not every instance gets reported because a lot of students, myself included, do not feel the support of the school behind us. It seems that we're just supposed to pray for that person's heart and move on with our lives, but to believe that racism is an isolated issue is a privileged mindset.
I hoped the conversation at Andrews would spark conversation and change at Southern, and while I appreciated the forum on campus that followed, it did not feel like anything changed.
Southern Adventist University has a reputation for being a place of racism. A lot of the response to students voicing their frustration over the Snapchat post was met with "What do you expect? You're at Southern." "If you didn't want to deal with racism you shouldn't have gone there.”
I want to graduate in peace, but I cannot do that if nothing is done to publicly support students of color at Southern and make sure racist incidents don't keep happening at this school, whether from current students or former students.
Administration says a lot about caring about black students, but I hope they start actually showing it.
God bless,
Shivani Ward