November 2007; a paper noose is found hanging in a North Carolina State University (NCSU) campus bathroom. November 2008; racial graffiti threatening our newly elected President, Barack Obama, is found displayed in our (NCSU) Free Expression Tunnel, causing outrage on campus, and an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service.

 Skip a year and then on November 1, 2010 offensive racial and anti-gay graffiti was found in the NCSU Free Expression Tunnel.

     Many students in our neo-diverse student-body were starting to be fed up with this trend of free expression of racial and anti-homosexuality animosity. Now, a storm was brewing. 

    When that November 1, 2010 racial graffiti incident was being reported in local TV (and other) media, I knew nothing about what was going on. In fact it took an email to alert me that something was going on. A recent graduate, a white female, who had taken my “Interpersonal Relationships and Race” course, wrote: “I… wanted to email you to ask if you knew of the “Blackout-Against-Racism” event on Facebook that is exploding with reactions and tensions relating to the Obama Free Expression Tunnel incident?” I had not heard anything. I investigated. What I learned about the lack of information on our campus disturbed me.

    November 4^th, the day after I received that email, in my “Interpersonal Relationships and Race” course, I led an impromptu discussion.  “How many of you have heard about the recent racial graffiti in the Free Expression Tunnel?” Only twenty-eight out of the neo-diverse racial, ethnic, gender and religious mix of 65 students (in attendance that day) had heard anything. What have you heard? One answer was, “there was a picture of Obama doing indecent things and the N-word was written.” “How did you hear?”  Students first heard about this through calls from family whose sources included the Washington Post, States Fan Nation, Facebook Event, News and Observer. Most surprising—one grandmother had seen a report on Good Morning America and called her grandson.

     One student asked, “…why do people outside of the university know more than the people within it?” It was two days after the Chancellor’s statement was released that I was conducting that in-class discussion. Yet nothing had appeared in the campus student newspaper. With disgust, one student said that “…student leaders and student media outlets got an email about this incident; the university was very selective about who they shared this info with.” Even that communication was not informative. One student said, “…there is still a lot of confusion. Nobody wants to say or tell about what was really written in the tunnel.”

    Students around campus were very upset but for different reasons.  African American students had protested by blocking access to the Free Expression Tunnel and that meant that for a time those black students had blocked part of the travel access to different sides of the campus. That got the attention of university administrators and aroused mixed feelings especially among white students around campus.  Friday, November 5^th, a meeting was held with the Chancellor and the leadership of African American groups on campus. Also, through the students’ Union Activities Board a protest rally was being organized to bring together a neo-diverse gender, racial, ethnic, and religious group of students. With the mix of emotions on campus, with this neo-diversity storm, a lot was being blown around our campus. 

    That weekend I received an email asking me to speak at the rally that was being planned.  November 17, 2010 the “Wake Up! It’s Serious” campus walk and rally was held. With the 50 or so participants wearing “I’m Awake” t-shirts, and yelling “we’re awake,” the rally was the culmination of the walk through campus.  When everyone gathered, I was introduced and spoke. 

    My style was motivational, but the content was serious and concrete with the point being that in our everyday interactions we have power to speak against the use of racial, gender, ethnic, religious slurs.  When I was done I was asked if I would turn my comments into an essay for our student run newspaper, The Technician. I did. That essay was published under the title “Wake Up To Your Own Power” (see my next post).

     Here at the end of the busiest semester of my life, something new and important was starting.

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