Nearly 200 members of the Boston University community convened at Metcalf Hall in the George Sherman Union Thursday evening for a discussion-based forum on race called BUnited.
With support from the Howard Thurman Center, multiple BU cultural clubs and campus fraternities helped organize and reach out to students to host the community gathering.
Syed Amir Ali, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences who helped facilitate the talks, said the goal was to provide a forum for students of diverse cultural backgrounds to speak about an issue “so prevalent in many people’s lives.”
“We wanted to have something where a dialogue occurs between people who have different views and create something together,” he said. “There is a bit of detachment between the faculty and our generation. We want the conversation to flow where these 20, 21, 22-year-olds’ minds will flow and talk about what affects their lives.”
Although he said the forum was arranged with help from faculty members, Ali stressed its conception as a student-run event.
Students were seated around 10-person tables and provided with three topics to converse about. Several faculty members helped start the talks and checked in periodically. After, students spoke openly and were able to address the entire crowd.
Autumn McArthur, a sophomore in CAS, said increasing conversation among the university’s student groups helps to create a sense of unity on a campus that overall lacks a feeling of community.
“We need to hold our groups accountable to collaborate with one another so we can build a culture on campus and hold each other accountable,” she said.
Students explored the idea of post-racialism in America, shared their experiences with micro-aggressions and offered tangible suggestions for encouraging race-based conversations. One conversation focused on how and why the BU community remained silent in November 2014 when Darren Wilson, a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, was not indicted in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Denise Ward, a junior in the College of Fine Arts, said the university could help students competently address issues of race by ensuring exposure to events like BUnited.
“It would be a good thing to have something like this at orientation, because that’s something every student has to do,” she said. “Another thing we can do is invite President [Robert] Brown.”
Brandi Brittain, a senior in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said BUnited was a good platform for minority students who may feel like their voices aren’t heard.
“We kind of go into situations with these preconceived notions, and realizing that we need to take a step back and think about everyone else’s lived experiences. and once we do, that we can really have a better understanding of where people are coming from,” she said.
Ali cited a notable BU alum as a source of inspiration for promoting positive race relations at BU.
“It’s our responsibility at a school that so highly advertises diversity and so highly advertises one of its most famous alumni, the reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so we need to continue that legacy as he would have hoped,” he said.
Davi de Azevedo, a junior in CAS and the College of Communication who also helped organize the forum, said students must resist the urge to look outward for examples of institutional racism around them and instead empower themselves to institute progressive change.
“The event was a good start,” de Azevedo said after the forum. “Looking back, it was successful because there’s so much potential moving forward. We created an environment where we can take responsibility within ourselves to better our community and not so much look at others to enforce their power, but enforce our own power.”
