Photo by Becca Hale
JORDAN PATTERSON
Staff Writer
A mix of students and faculty filled up Rosch Recital Hall right before 6:30 p.m. last Wednesday. Organizer and member of the Black Youth Project, Charlene Carruthers, was in the building. Everyone in attendance came to witness her presentation on student activism, titled “But no one is showing up to our events! Movement Building on Campus.”
Within the first five minutes of her speech, she captured the crowd’s attention. Her relaxed delivery blended with her sincere emotion, allowing her to easily dive in and out of topics smoothly, jumping from her love of Beyoncé to the oppression of minorities.
“In an ideal situation, you would come [to college] to learn, you would come here to get your education, maybe come here to meet a partner or something, some people come here for that,” said Carruthers.
The crowd offered a small laugh back to Carruthers.
“Come here to gain some skills, but I don’t know how many of you came here to fight,” she said.
The crowd was then silent. Carruthers asked for a show of hands of how many people came here to fight, only a few raised their hands. Carruthers paused hoping for more people to join in but was without success.
“I hope you all are organizing on campus,” Carruthers said in response to the few people.
For Carruthers, she dreams of a place where people are committed to helping each other thrive in this society. Her primary goal, though, is black liberation. She emphasized that organization is the key to making change and that one person can’t do it alone. She also recognized that in order for one minority to be free, the others have to be too.
“None of us will be free unless all of us are free,” said Carruthers.
Carruthers touched on a number of topics involving racial issues, in particular police brutality. She explained that she doesn’t feel safe knowing that there are police officers patrolling her neighborhood in Chicago, referencing the fact that the earliest version of policing in the United States is sometimes considered to be 18th-century slave patrols.
She brought up numerous recent examples of police brutality, including the deaths of Eric Garner and Walter Scott. Carruthers voiced skepticism at the popular notion that body cameras might help prevent other similar incidents.
“They have footage of Eric Garner’s murder. They have video of that. They have Walter Scott being gunned down in South Carolina,” she said.
One student who was there to hear the entire speech was sophomore audio/radio production major Kanard Lewis.
“Honestly, I thought it was great. I personally feel that to have a black female talking about these issues is very [important] for our growth as a society because if we don’t discuss these topics… how are we ever supposed to grow,” said Lewis.
Members of the Black Student Union (BSU) were in attendance and were the major factor in bringing Carruthers to Fredonia. One member in particular was junior social work major Patrice Douglas.
“This was relevant to campus because there has been a lot of activity on other campuses within SUNY and private institutions that have issues with minority students being the outcasts almost,” said Douglas, BSU events chair. “Charlene used the term being fugitives on our own campus, and I think this speech was very important because it’s almost giving our power back when we felt we didn’t have a voice on campus.”
Both of these students referenced pieces of Carruthers’s speech, more specifically the part where she explained that white people must confront prejudice between each other, and that it isn’t the minorities job to educate the people that don’t agree with them. She believes that the only way for us to successfully tear down the barrier that is racism is for people within that race, that aren’t racist, to teach each other.
Before the floor was open for questions from the audience, she ended her speech with questions of her own.
“Who’s missing from that room… why is no one showing up to our events? Who are the some ones that need to be there, and what are those events about?” Carruthers asked. “So, I encourage you all to take those things with you and, like, go tear some shit up. Thank you.”