This letter was submitted by Blakely Broder, junior Presidential Fellow, and read to the President of the CPE.
Dr. Aaron Thompson,
To the President of Kentucky’s Council on Postsecondary Education, I want to say thank you. Thank you for coming here to hear our voices and concerns. Thank you for coming directly to the source. And to the man who values empathy towards fellow man, this letter is to you.
There are many ways in which Murray State University has evolved in terms of acceptance. However, as the blatant racism in our area of the country has dwindled, the stubborn persistence of racial bias has become an incredibly disheartening replacement. While I am not its victim, I am writing to be the voice of the collection of friends, coworkers, and classmates who have come to me. They come to me, not for solutions, but to share the injustices that they cannot confront. And when they try to address these issues themselves, their concerns are too often mistaken for hostility, contempt, or disrespect just because of the color of their skin.
So here I am, the white woman asking for the manager. What is less threatening than that? I ask you to hear that the diversity and sensitivity training that is currently in place is not enough. An online quiz and a signature addressing acceptance is not a sufficient enough standard to ensure the equal treatment of my fellow colleagues on campus. In a time where we have had a two-term African-American president, have seen history shine graciously on heroes like Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman, and claim to value equality, we are growing in the right direction. However, it is pertinent that we do not stand idle.
For all work that has been done, there is a counterpart. For every ally the African American community maintains, there are hidden rivals. For every opportunity that an African American student creates for him or herself, they are met with the daunting possibility that it can be taken away all too easily. And this is what needs to change.
In colleges across Kentucky, we need to not only mandate diversity training and acceptance, but also ensure that the men and women teaching and leading our academic careers are sensitized to the many forms of racial bias that persist.
It is time to talk about race. It is time to ask the question of why I, being a young white woman, am perceived as confident and charismatic, while my African American counterparts are often perceived as confrontational and inherently hostile. It’s time to ask if the professors in our classrooms and the students in our residential colleges are embracing the beautiful diversity that Murray State offers or if they’re merely tolerating it.
If it is the latter, which I have continuously observed, we are not doing enough for our students. Not only are we missing out on the opportunity to learn about and learn from a powerful community with ample history and culture, but we are taking opportunities away from the students who have had to overcome the most to earn them.
Tolerance is not enough. Acceptance is not enough. We need to enact racial bias training, in addition to antidiscrimination training, if we want to eliminate this undue burden from our education system.
Thank you for your time, for your care, and for the work that you have done.
Sincerely,
Blakely Broder
Presidential Fellow