Alan Toussaint | Higher Ed English Educator

In my last blog post about social justice, I talked about writing the many stories that surrounds racial justice in the U.S. but in Minnesota. There is one thing that must be discussed before we can talk about racial justice: racial equality.

For those who don’t know what racial equality means, it means that all places must give equal opportunities to all races. This includes places such as colleges/universities, employment, healthcare and so on. There has been many historical movements that have been made with racial equality, such as voting and schooling, but there is so much more work that needs to be done.

From the various articles that I’ve read over the last year regarding racial disparities within colleges and universities in Minnesota, there seems to be little improvement in higher education but is suffering a lot due to COVID-19. According to St. Cloud Times, “Enrollment [at St. Cloud Technical and Community College] among black students and students of color was down even more than 20%”. In addition to COVID-19 in play, another major factor that we need to consider is cost and living. Many students may have lost their jobs, which in turn, students could not focus on their school work and either their grades suffered or dropped out. For those that didn’t loose a job, POC students had to pick up extra hours to support the household and keeping up with their school work.

With the pandemic, racial equality needs to be at the forefront for anyone that wants change in their community. Personally, I want to see racial equality in the future career move that I would like to do within higher education. In student services, there’s a huge need for outreach for black and students of color for resources and to talk with them about their experiences. A lot of them are in a new environment and will most likely won’t know anyone at the school. I felt the same way when I first started at SCSU in August for grad school because it was my first time doing things alone and being in a different part of the country. Additionally, my work with LGBTQ+ students raises an extra need for students of color to be connected and to have a space for them to be authentic and to share their experiences with other non-POC students for them to share those cultural aspects.

Overall, racial equality is related to racial justice because everyone needs to have a fair system for crimes and trials to have their voices hears. More on racial justice will be explained in my next blog post.

Source: https://www.sctimes.com/story/news/2020/08/06/st-cloud-higher-ed-strives-toward-anti-racist-practices-amid-covid-19-scsu-sctcc-college-university/5474171002

Even before the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, there were many other black and people of color that were being killed and/or not being handled properly by law enforcement. For many decades, black people have been trying to work with local police departments on diversity and shuffling low level calls onto other social service organizations that can handle the situations. With the COVID-19 crisis and the many murders that have happened in 2020, many people are tired of law enforcement not getting locked behind bars for years because of the immunity laws that police departments offer to their officers. With the topic of racial justice, there are many way that I can talk about how justice is currently served and the possible solutions going forward.

According to the ACLU of Minnesota, “black people were 8.7 times more likely to be arrested for a low-level offense than white people, and Native Americans were 8.6 times more likely to be arrested for a low-level offense than white people,” (Source: https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/picking-pieces?redirect=minneapolis) . Many black people have stories of police officers being rude to them while doing traffic stops, saying racists words. Even when the person is charged for a crime, usually, a person of higher authority will believe the officers word than the citizens.

These stories need to be told and shared because many people do not understand what it means to be black in America. Shoot, just waking up every single day is a miracle in itself. With the statistic that I’ve stated in the previous paragraph, I can share many stories of everyday black Americans who have dealt with law enforcement. Their negative experiences with police when being pulled over, arrested for a crime and being assaulted should be shared, so that a conversation should happen among community members, friends and other government officials.

My interest in this story is the simple fact that I’m becoming more aware of what’s happening in the justice system (especially in Minnesota). Also, I still do have fears of being pulled over by police and getting mistreated and anyone in the government not believing my story.

When I arrived in Minnesota last August to start my graduate program, I never been to Minnesota in my life. I’ve read some stories about the racial disparities it has with the black and indigenous communities in the state. Once I moved here, I’m seeing the strong tensions that has happened with the murder of George Floyd and the many communities in Minnesota that has a majority white population.

Additionally, I would want to write about the various statistics with racial injustice within the U.S., Minnesota and how what it would look like moving forward to the next several years.

Photo Credit: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/05/29/protests-over-killing-of-george-floyd-spread-across-the-nation