After having a peaceful protest in the K-State Student Union on Dec. 3, at 12:30 p.m. held by the Kansas State University Black Student Union, myself and my fellow African-American students started seeing posts on a social media site called Yik-Yak. It’s a site where people around your community can post anonymous messages. When I saw this, it made me feel utterly disgusted and that this is how some students at K-State feel about African-Americans at this university. When we saw this stuff, some of us went on Twitter and mentioned the K-State president Kirk Schulz. His exact words were, “Shout out to @ksubsu for a peaceful demonstration on campus today. Remember to ignore the hateful comments made anonymously #Family.”
How is this family? How can we sit here and move forward with these hateful comments that were made toward us? This makes me feel on edge and feel like this is what the whites in my classroom and around campus think about me. It’s upsetting because we are already a minority at a predominantly white institution. It’s heartbreaking knowing that we sit in the same classroom, buy the same books and pay the same tuition, and this is how we are stereotyped. Reading some of the comments made literally brought me to tears. When I chose Kansas State as a university, it’s because out of all the other colleges I was accepted to, it stood out to me. It was the friendly faces on campus. The way that professors and other faculty are supportive and strive to help you gain knowledge and succeed. The fact that there are so many opportunities here to be involved, and a great place to receive and education.
After this tragedy of comments, it makes me wonder if we are really a family that K-State says we are? Do I and my fellow African-American students belong? Or our we just a minority group that people could care less about? After all of the events that have been taking place such as the Michael Brown case and Eric Garner case (and the list could go on), we thought as an African-American community that we would strive to come together to bring awareness to the campus and community and make a change. My concern is where do we go from here? How do we fix this racism that has sparked when we are suppose to be a university that encourages diversity?
Sincerely,
Ariel Maupins