This past week Bucknell hosted Lawrence Ross as the 2022 Greek Week speaker, and I had the utmost pleasure of attending! Ross, author of best seller The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities, spoke to us about the present and historical issues of racism on hundreds of American college campuses and greek life especially, and how this all ties into the Black Lives Matter campaign. Ross has lectured at over 300 colleges and universities since publishing his 7th book, Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on America’s Campuses, including his alma mater UCLA where he was initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity in 1985.
In case you were unable to attend this event, here were some highlights/takeaways I caught! Additionally, if you’d like to get into contact with Lawrence Ross check out his social media, all @alpha1906, or email him at alpha1906@gmail.com!
Campuses across the United States have history of racist incidents, this is unfortunately no secret. However, Ross enlightened us on how colleges are viewed in terms of racist incidents and history of racist sentiments by those that run them. College/university presidents often see their own institutions as having a rating of around 81% (considered to be “good and excellent”) when it comes to inclusion and diversity, but they view other institutions as having a rating of 24%. Ross explains how these statistics reveal that college presidents can be reactive rather than proactive when it comes to racist incidents. This premise can apply to greek leaders as well, and underscores how vital it is to be a proactive leader rather than a reactive one - this goes beyond just being an anti-racist, but also being an upstanding and educated ally.
Another point Ross brings up is that hiding behind euphemisms is not going to help us get to the root of the problem. This relates to the concept of “colorblindness” which is essentially a euphemism of “I’m going to ignore it all.” This is not the way - we must recognize race despite it being a social construct. Ross explains that despite race being considered a social construct, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t important, stating, “race is a biological nothing, race is a sociological everything.” We must be race aware rather than race averse.
There is both systemic and individual racism, which we must keep in mind as students attending universities experiencing institutional and systemic racism, as well as individual racism amongst peers and even the communities around us. Racism has three components: difference, superiority, and dominance, and these components are seen on both systemic and individual levels.
These are just a few highlights I was able to jot down, but doesn’t even begin to cover everything Ross taught us in his engaging presentation this past Tuesday. For further education, please also consider checking out Black Greek 101 by Walter M. Kimbrough, and Lawrence Ross’ Blackballed and The Divine Nine.
In addition to this, I urge you to read this article by Delta Alpha Psi that includes 10 steps for your allyship journey. These 10 steps correlate with a lot of what Ross spoke about and are a great foundation for self educating and being an ally.