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JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

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and DEREK WOLFE 

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, November 19, 2015

#BBUM and Sankofa: Looking Back to Move Forward

ELIZABETH JAMES | MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Today 
marks 
the 
second 

anniversary of the launch of the 
#BBUM 
Twitter 
campaign. 
The 

hashtag and its acronym, which stands 
for Being Black at the University of 
Michigan, was used during one of the 
early precursors to the recent protests 
that are occurring across the nation. As 
a University alum, I fully understood 
what led the students in 2013 to speak 
up and express themselves through 
the use of a Twitter campaign.

This 
university 
has 
long 

experienced various forms of racial 
tension, which isn’t surprising given 
the nation’s ongoing struggles in 
dealing with W.E.B. Du Bois’ brilliant 
assessment of “the problem of the 
color-line.” Michigan is a public 
university that attracts people from all 
over the world, and for many it’s the 
first time they are exposed to new and 
different cultures, which results in 
awkward situations and interactions. 
Being African American in such a 
setting can be particularly frustrating 
because although many of our families 
have been citizens of this country for 
hundreds of years, we still experience 
discrimination, both subtle and overt.

In 2013, members of the Black 

community were deeply affected by 
racist incidents that had occurred on 
campus, and held a Freeze Out on the 
Diag to address these issues. When 
the leadership of the Black Student 
Union came to me as their faculty 
adviser to strategize ways to express 
how they were feeling, I felt a strange 
sense of deja vu.

I remembered the bittersweet 

sound of my mother’s voice speaking 
about how she roomed with other 
young Black women on Catherine 
Street because she wasn’t permitted 
to live in the dormitories. Despite 
her own treatment, my mother took 
great pride in being a Wolverine, and 
encouraged my sister and me to attend 
her alma mater.

My own memories as an alum 

mirrored 
my 
mother’s 
mixed 

emotions during my undergraduate 
and graduate career in the late ‘70s and 
early ‘80s. Back then, I encountered 
confrontations 
in 
the 
classroom 

originating from both faculty and 
other students who would assume 
my presence was due to affirmative 
action. I had actually won a prestigious 
scholarship from the Detroit Institute 
of Arts to study the history of art. 
Constant remarks about being “well-
spoken for someone from Detroit” 
led me to seek solace within the Black 
Student Union and to find safe spaces 
on campus which would affirm and 
empower me, such as the Center (now 
Department) for Afroamerican and 
African Studies.

Discovering racist scrawls on the 

door of my dorm room and seeing 
gorillas hanging in effigy in the Diag 
was devastating, but my mother 
comforted me by explaining that these 
were signs of ignorance and that I was 
at school to awaken and illuminate 
my mind. She, along with empathetic 
faculty 
and 
friends, 
offered 

consolation and noted the benefits 

of attending this University, not the 
least of which that it was a powerful 
introduction to everyday racism. I 
grew stronger and less shocked by 
the behavior I witnessed. Eventually, 
I gained the confidence to find my 
voice, and in speaking up, discovered 
others who shared my perspectives 
regardless of their class, creed or color.

Returning from my memories, I 

listened as the students described 
utilizing the traditional methods of 
mobilization, including wearing black 
as a sign of solidarity, attending the 
Freeze Out: Follow Up Forum to speak 
out for social justice and papering the 
posting wall with statements about 
their experiences.

Then it happened. One of the 

students contacted me and alerted 
me to sign on to Twitter and follow 
#BBUM. What I saw there defied 
description. All of my experiences 
attending the University — both 
positive 
and 
negative 
— 
were 

scrolling past me in a burst of tweets 
that left me breathless.

The use of social media as the 

method of communication within this 
brilliant campaign expanded the range 
of the participants. The tweets began 
with current students, then faculty, 
staff and even administration joined 
the online discussion. Eventually 
alumni chimed in, some like myself 
saddened that many of the same 
situations that we had undergone 
were still happening at the campus 
we had once considered our home. 
The academic in me started analyzing 
the tweets: some were angry, some 
staunch in their support of the 
students, while others stood firmly 
decrying any difference between 
treatment between and among races.

Others sent messages of support 

and solidarity. The numbers grew 
until even the students who began 
the campaign were astonished at 
the ongoing wave of responses. One 
thing was certain: the responding 
Wolverines were honest in their 
appraisal of the time spent in the 
land of maize and blue. There was 
no shortage of opinions from those 
within and outside the campus walls. 
Anyone with access to Twitter could 
participate — and they did!

The media took note and began 

reporting on the hashtag, its meaning 
and the Twitter campaign. People 
from all over the country and beyond 
were sending messages and #BBUM 
went viral. The students involved 
were interviewed by newspapers, 
radio stations and television. It was a 
chaotic time, stressful and relentless, 
but the tweets kept on coming.

The 
West 
African 
Ghanaian 

Adinkra term Sankofa means “return 
and get it,”

or looking back to move forward. 

Prior to and throughout the campaign, 
students researched the previous 
demands presented by the previous 
Black Action Movements on campus. 
In addition, they compiled the coded 
responses from the Twitter campaign 
and created a list of demands. These 
were presented in front of Hill 

Auditorium at the conclusion of the 
MLK keynote speech in January 
2014. The gauntlet had been dropped, 
and the real talk and hard work of 
negotiating for a better, more inclusive 
campus community would begin.

Today, the students continue to 

work with administration on those 
same demands, which ultimately 
is the true sign of a movement, not 
just a moment frozen in time. My 
pride in their tenacity is unwavering, 
and I’m constantly inspired by their 
resilience. On the surface level, some 
progress has occurred in terms of a 
shift in campus climate since #BBUM 
with the powerful conversations 
and mobilization efforts that have 
continued and grown. Part of the 
problem 
stems 
from 
the 
rapid 

response rate and accessible nature 
of the Internet that fueled #BBUM 
also leaves social media open to racists 
who can hide behind pseudonyms. 
Still, I remain staunchly committed to 
a more inclusive University, for as my 
mother wisely advised me, although 
the struggle is daunting, an equitable 
society is the right of every human. 
The promise of a more diverse pool of 
future Wolverines leaves me hopeful 
that the dreams of the first students of 
color who attended Michigan as well 
as those who protested after Martin 
Luther King, Jr. was assassinated will 
one day become reality.

Sidebar: Dr. Ibram Kendi author of 

“The Black Campus Movement,” has 
pointed out the dearth of research 
on the subject of what is deemed 
the Black Campus Movement. He 
notes, “The historical literature on 
the BCM has burst onto the scene 
over the last thirteen years since 
Wayne Glasker’s “Black Students 
in the Ivory Tower” (2002) at the 
University of Pennsylvania and Joy 
Williamson-Lott’s “Black Power on 
Campus” (2003) on the University 
of Illinois. In 2009, Stefan Bradley 
released “Harlem vs. Columbia.” 
In 2010, Fabio Rojas’s “From Black 
Power to Black Studies” appeared 
and Jeffrey Turner’s “Sitting In and 
Speaking Out” shared some stories of 
the BCM in the South. In 2012, three 
more studies hit libraries, Martha 
Biondi’s “The Black Revolution on 
Campus,” and the special issue in the 
Journal of African American Studies 
on the origins of Black studies, edited 
by Jonathan Fenderson, James B. 
Stewart, and Kabria Baumgartner. 
Richard D. Benson’s “Fighting for 
Our Place in the Sun” came out 
in 2014, giving a better picture of 
Malcolm X’s influence on Black 
student activism in North Carolina. 
DAAS looks forward to co-sponsoring 
an event featuring Lawrence Ross, 
author of “Blackballed: The Black and 
White Politics of Race on America’s 
Campuses,” on February 16, 2016, with 
with MESA, Housing, and the Office 
of Greek Life. Ross’s work includes 
interviews with UM students, along 
with others across the nation.

Elizabeth James is a University of 

Michigan alum, BA ’82, MA ‘84 .

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Ben Keller, Payton Luokkala, 

Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Melissa Scholke, 
Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

FROM THE DAILY

Snyder’s unacceptable response 

Halting the acceptance of Syrian refugees is based in fear, not fact
F

ollowing recent terror attacks in Paris, Beirut and Baghdad, 
31 governors, including Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, 
announced their opposition to accepting Syrian refugees 

into their states. Though the process of admitting refugees isn’t 
within their jurisdiction, the governors’ statements reflect the fear 
of the general populace in light of the harrowing attacks. However, 
these responses are unacceptable, as they’re based in reactionary 
fear, not fact or reason, and vilify refugees who are more directly 
affected by the violence than most Americans. 

Snyder’s response, which he later clarified 

to rather hault accepting refugees until U.S. 
security procedures are reviewed, is especially 
concerning considering that Michigan has the 
largest population of Arab Americans in the 
country. Last week’s attacks directly affected 
his constituents: Among the casualties of the 
Beirut bombing were three Dearborn residents. 
Additionally, Michigan’s immigration rates rank 
among the highest in the country, of all refugees 
in the United States, 4 percent come to Michigan. 
Snyder has previously expressed his support of 
taking in Syrian refugees in the past, noting their 
positive contributions to the economy.

Therefore, Snyder’s remarks seem aimed 

to cater to party opinion — all but one of the 
31 governors who denounced the absorption 
of Syrian refugees were Republicans. As an 
elected official, it’s Snyder’s responsibility to 
advocate for his constituency, not for what his 
party wants to hear at the national level. 

Since 2001, the United States has absorbed 

745,000 refugees. Of that 745,000, only two 
refugees have been arrested under charges of 
terrorism. The people seeking refuge in the 
United States aren’t the ones trying to destroy 
Western culture — they’re trying to flee 
persecution and find a safe environment where 
they can uphold their values and beliefs.

While President Barack Obama’s call for 

the United States to take in 10,000 Syrian 
refugees in the next fiscal year is a step in the 
right direction, it fails to take into account the 
United States’ burdensome asylum process. 
In the past four years, the United States has 
taken in barely 2,000 refugees from Syria, 
with just 200 refugees admitted between 2011 
and 2014. Such slow rates of entrance may 
be attributed to the laborious and incredibly 
strict asylum process for Syrian refugees. It 
can take up to two years for a Syrian seeking 
asylum seeker to finally be granted permission 
to move to the United States. 

A Syrian refugee must apply for asylum 

through the UN or a U.S. embassy, conduct 
face-to-face 
interviews 
and 
participate 

in extensive background checks to prove 
that neither they nor any member of their 
extended family gave so much as a cigarette 
to a member of a “terrorist group” recognized 
by the U.S. government. Such a system 
undermines the principle of “innocent until 
proven guilty” that’s meant to pervade our 
justice system. Such a system perpetuates 
Americans’ fear of foreigners. 

Our politicians’ xenophobia is cause for 

alarm, as the nature of the Syrian refugee hasn’t 
changed in light of these attacks. If anything, 
the attacks make refugees’ escape from the 
Islamic State more urgent.

What’s so abhorrent about the responses 

of our country’s leaders is that they capitalize 
on their constituents’ fear, claiming a stake in 
tragedy to bolster their own political agenda. 
Many 
Republican 
politicians, 
including 

presidential candidate Donald Trump, pegged 
France’s strict gun control laws as a leading 
contributor to the magnitude of the devastation 
in Paris. Republican presidential candidate 
Ted Cruz and other GOP candidates said they 
would allow Christian refugees to settle in their 
states, as if Muslim refugees aren’t disposed to 
the same risks as their Christian counterparts. 

But, since people are afraid, they listen. 

They listen closely. They internalize these 
assertions made under false pretenses and 
create a discriminatory and potentially 
dangerous environment for new immigrants. 
As if it isn’t already hard enough for refugees 
to seek asylum in the United States, those who 
make the cut quickly find that they have come 
to a country where they will be marginalized 
by merit of where they come from, not their 
own personal beliefs. 

This baseless discrimination clashes with 

the values of acceptance of others and of 
religious and cultural freedom that America 
stands for. Snyder should take note of these 
facts in order to foster a state in which all 
residents, whether they were born here or 
not, can exercise their rights without fear of 
unfounded prejudice. 

Containing terrorism

W

e have all heard about the gruesome 
ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris on the 
evening of Nov. 13. These attacks 

took the lives of at least 
129 victims and injured 
hundreds more. They were 
the first attacks that ISIS 
carried out in Europe.

ISIS, also known as the 

Islamic State, has long 
communicated its intent 
to expand terror from the 
Middle East to Europe 
and the United States. 
ISIS has had the ability to 
attack in Europe and the 
United States for far too 
long because of its large number of foreign 
recruits (estimated to be around 30,000 by a 
United States intelligence report) who have 
the agency to re-enter their home countries 
and launch attacks.

However, U.S. President Barack Obama has 

consistently chosen to be reactionary toward 
ISIS as opposed to combating the threat itself. 
Since Aug. 8, 2014, the United States has been 
launching airstrikes against the Islamic 
State in Iraq. The airstrikes are a reaction to 
its startling territorial gains, including the 
acquisition of Mosul, the second-largest city 
in Iraq, in June 2014.

The beheadings of American journalists 

James Foley and Steven Sotloff helped to 
prompt the expansion of airstrikes into Syria 
in September 2014. These airstrikes haven’t 
sufficiently stabilized the region, considering 
that ISIS thrives in conquered areas with a large 
number of Arab Sunni populations and that the 

organization has attracted recruits from nearly 
80 countries. ISIS has been very active in the 
last few weeks. Besides the terrorist attacks in 
Paris, ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide 
bombing in Baghdad that killed 19 people on 
Nov. 13, suicide bombings in Beirut that killed 
43 on Nov. 12, and for the deaths of 224 on a 
Russian aircraft that crashed on Oct. 31.

Despite these extensive attacks by ISIS, 

Obama maintained his view that current 
efforts against ISIS are sufficient at the recent 
G-20 summit in Turkey. He was asked about 
underestimating the Islamic State, if the United 
States should send more troops to Syria and 
about elusive success combatting ISIS. When 
asked if American policy should increase 
forces in Syria, he stated, “We would see a 
repetition of what we’ve seen before, which 
is if you do not have local populations that are 
committed to inclusive governance and who 
are pushing against ideological extremes, that 
they resurface, unless we’re prepared to have a 
permanent occupation of these countries.”

It seems to me that Obama provides an excuse 

for not sending ground troops by suggesting 
that he doesn’t want to repeat former President 
George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Obama 
believes that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 failed 
to create stability in the region because the 
locals weren’t prepared to combat extremism. 
It’s true that the locals were unprepared to 
combat extremism, but they were unprepared 
to do so in the wake of a hasty United States exit 
from the region in 2011.

David Ignatius summarizes the situation in 

an article for The Atlantic, “How ISIS Spread 
in the Middle East.” Ignatius describes how 
attempts by the United States or Islamist rebels 

ASHLEY 

AUSTIN

to topple authoritarian regimes in the 
Middle East create power vacuums. 
Extremists will fill the political 
vacuums if the United States and its 
allies don’t build strong local forces 
that can suppress terrorist groups.

The 
United 
States 
must 
be 

persistent in its efforts to aid the local 
forces — if it withdraws too soon as it 
did from Iraq in 2011 under Obama’s 
orders, terrorists will seize power. 
Iraqi forces weren’t ready for the 
withdrawal of American troops, and 
Obama’s policymakers chose to look 
the other way for too long as ISIS 
spread between 2011 to 2014. From 
2014 onward, the United States has 
sought to only contain the threat of 
ISIS through airstrikes — not the full 
military engagement necessary to 
topple the Islamic State.

ISIS is only becoming stronger, 

and it’s time to eliminate the threat 
of terrorism once and for all in the 
Middle East. For the last 14 years, 
the United States has been involved 
in proxy wars in the Middle East 
that haven’t sufficiently eliminated 
violent extremism its perpetrators 
seek to spread everywhere. We 
have lived in a world constantly 
threatened by terrorism for most 
of our lives, provoking fear in many 
of us. Whenever I attend sporting 

events, fly on an airplane or board 
a train, there’s always that fleeting 
second in which I think back to 9/11 
and other terrorist attacks. I never let 
this fear dictate my actions, but it’s a 
fear that I cannot escape.

There are few places in the world 

that extremists don’t seek to attack, 
and I know that my fear isn’t unique to 
being an American. I sometimes think 
back to my harrowing experience 
on an overnight cruise between 
Italy and Greece in 2008. When on 
the cruise, we were informed that 
there had been a terrorist threat and 
potential bomb placed on board of 
the ship. It was difficult to surmise 
the details of the threat announced 
on the loudspeakers because the 
announcements came first in four 
other languages before English. 
Passengers spoke in panicked voices 
over the announcements.

I remember my mother holding 

my hand and leading me back to the 
room that I shared with my sister. 
Italian police officers and bomb 
squads raided every room on the ship, 
including the room that I shared with 
my sister. I became hyperaware of 
how trapped and vulnerable I was on 
this ship in the middle of the Adriatic 
Sea, so far from home. My last 
memories of this experience include 

looking out a porthole at the topaz 
sea and wondering how such hatred 
could exist. Evidently, there was no 
bomb on board, but this experience 
taught me that terrorism has a broad 
affect that can touch you anywhere 
in this world.

Terrorism cannot be contained 

to the Middle East; it will extend 
itself to strike us when we least 
expect it. The time has come for 
more 
extensive 
attacks 
against 

ISIS in Iraq and Syria that may 
have to include ground troops. 
The Islamic State is far from being 
contained as Obama stated it to 
be on the morning of Nov. 13 in a 
“Good Morning America” interview 
and maintains presently. Al-Qaeda 
and its outgrowth, ISIS, have been 
terrorizing their own societies and 
the world for the last 14 years, and 
they have the capability to continue 
to do so.

The reality is that we must demand 

policies that recognize that this 
group is a top threat to our ability 
to live in a democracy and a world 
where civilians don’t have to fear 
assassination just because they don’t 
adopt Islamic extremist ideology.

— Ashley Austin can be reached 

at agracea@umich.edu.

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