Students argue Wainstein report has racist undertones

The Real Silent Sam Coalition rallied Wednesday on the steps of South Building, protesting racist media bias and unfair targeting of the former Department of African and Afro-American Studies in Kenneth Wainstein’s recently released report.

The coalition is a group of activist students, faculty and community members who are dedicated to educating people about the racial history of monuments and buildings on UNC’s campus and in Chapel Hill.

Omololu Babatunde, one of the organizers of the Real Silent Sam Coalition, said many people misunderstood the demonstration. She said the facts in the report are true, but the way people have targeted the Department of African, African-American and Diaspora Studies is racist.

“Why was it so easy for the University and the media to just define the AFAM department as this sight of this despicable injustice?” she said.

She said the report should have further investigated the other two departments that were also originally implicated in the scandal and that the report could have included some of the professors’ voices.

“You’re attacking a department that was fought for and struggled for,” she said.

If this had happened in any other department that isn’t based on the experience of people who have been historically marginalized in society, it would have been treated differently, she said.

“Calling this an academic scandal is an oppressive misnomer,” she said.

Trey Mangum, president of the UNC Black Student Movement, said he believes the media have unfairly focused negative attention on the Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies.

“It’s just yet another moment in this saga of the academic scandal in which it seems like the AAAD department is a scapegoat,” he said.

He said even if the report had focused on a different department for administering paper classes, the underlying basis of the scandal would still have had racist undertones because the incident deals heavily with student-athletes.

“A good majority (of athletes) are African-American, and some of them come from low socio-economic backgrounds,” he said.

About 200 students, faculty and staff participated in the protest, which also included performances by EROT Poetry and the Harmonyx a capella group, as well as a short speech by geography professor Altha Cravey.

The rally also included time for students to voice their feelings on both the report and the public’s reaction to it.

Babatunde said she was moved by the turnout.

“The rally was really a healing place,” she said. “We want subjects to be able to talk for themselves, and that’s what the report didn’t allow.”

Senior Emilio Vicente said he came to the rally because he feels it is important for everyone to come together as a community.

“I think it’s really important that we hear from students about many ways the AFAM department has been demonized by the report,” he said.

Vicente said he believes the paper classes were created so young black men could participate in sports that make a lot of money.

“The report just revealed the system that’s in place,” he said. “It brings to light that race is a big thing in college sports.”

Senior Ben Runkel, who also attended the rally, said that though non-athletes also ended up taking these classes, the reason that they were created is clear.

“I think the intention was so the students could continue participating in a system that takes advantage of African-American men,” he said.

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