The crowd at the racial injustice open forum Jan. 26, held in response to an incident in which a racial slur was allegedly yelled at a black student from a car on North O’Kelley Ave, was not representative of Elon University’s student body. And that’s a problem.
In The Pendulum’s coverage of the forum, Randy Williams, dean of mul- ticultural affairs, was quoted saying the event didn’t garner the diverse turnout he expected.
“I would have loved to have seen a greater diversity of students,” Williams said. “To be quite frank, more white students would have been nice.”
Williams is right. This event should affect the individual target of the incident as much as the entire student body. But what does the student body have to say about it?
We may never know. Less than 20 percent of Elon’s student body is comprised of racial minorities. But an overwhelming majority of participants at the forum were minority students. The discouraging representation from the remaining 80 percent is evidence that most of the student body has yet to become engaged in the race discussion, a conversation that shouldn’t exist in a vacuum among minority students.
But the race conversation largely begins and ends with minority students at Elon, Williams said in an interview after the forum.
“[The voice of the minority] is one that needs to be brought to the forefront, and there are people who need to hear these things,” Williams said. “When you have a conversation about racial differences, it’s not a comfortable place to be, especially if you have privilege.”
But it’s important to have these con- versations, no matter how uncomfortable they are, so we can move forward from incidents like this having learned something from one another.
Meaningful conversations about how issues of intolerance should be handled certainly took place at the forum, despite the lack of diversity present. Just because white students aren’t directly impacted doesn’t mean they should stay silent.
The forum was the optimal platform for students in a position of privilege to hear from Elon’s minority students about being immersed in a dominant white culture on a college campus. It’s disheartening that more white students didn’t take advantage of the opportunity.
Diversity is important to Elon’s administration, which has constructed of safe spaces for the university’s racial minorities on the second floor of the Moseley Center. But not all students are on board yet. Everyone in the Elon community, regardless of background, needs to step up and do their part in creating that safe space everywhere. Otherwise, little progress can be made.