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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News & Michigan in Color
Thursday, November 17, 2016 — 3A

out and said he cared about diversity 
and marginalized students, we 
are here to show so many students 
at the University, people who are 
living in Ann Arbor, support the 
University of Michigan becoming a 
sanctuary campus,” she said. “And 
if President Schlissel really cared 
about (protecting) marginalized 
students, this is one concrete way he 
can do it besides showing up.”

Protesters cited a number of 

concerns 
during 
the 
walkout, 

including the two hate crimes in 
downtown Ann Arbor that have 
been reported to police since 
Trump’s presidential win last week. 
On Friday, a woman was threatened 
and forced to remove her hijab. On 
Saturday, a woman was pushed 
down a hill and verbally harassed. 
Additionally, 
many 
speakers 

discussed anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ 
and anti-Muslim posters, many of 
them promoting themes of white 
supremacy, that have been found 

posted on campus several times in 
the past few months.

LSA junior Alyiah Al-Bonijim 

spoke to the crowd about her 
frustrations 
with 
Islamophobic 

comments triggered by her choice to 
wear a hijab.

“For what? Because you want 

to see my hair? Is that what is 
important to these fucking white 
people?” Al-Bonijim asked the 
cheering crowd, saying that forcing 
a woman to take off her clothing, 
including the hijab, was sexual 
assault.

Protesters 
also 
touched 
on 

the failure of a Central Student 
Government vote Tuesday night to 
divest from corporations that have 
allegedly committed human rights 
violations 
against 
Palestinians. 

Many in the crowd yelled negative 
chants about CSG during the 
walkout. 

Following the initial assembly on 

the Diag, the protesters marched 
throughout Central Campus, also 
entering buildings to continue their 
chants. 

As the march moved through 

campus, student organizers, as 

well as Jackson, led the crowd 
in a number of chants condemning 
racism, sexism, islamophobia and 
xenophobia.

Chants included slogans such as: 

“No justice, no peace,” “Hey Hey, Ho 
Ho, these racist folks have got to go,” 
“No Alt-Right, no KKK, no fascist 
USA” and “Black Lives Matter.”

“Thanks for stepping up and 

fighting back,” Jackson told the 

crowd. “Do not let any election 
oppress your dreams … Red, yellow, 
black and white, you are all precious 
in God’s sight. We must learn to 
live together. This land is a land of 
multiculturalism.”

Jackson led student chants, 

showing solidarity with those all 
of those who felt marginalized in 

the past months, including Black, 

Muslim and Mexican-American 
students.

“We are all sanctuary,” he said. 

“We love each other. We care for 
each other. You take one of us, you 
must take all of us. We are not going 
anywhere. This land is our land. 
We will outlast the meanness, we 
will outlast hate. We will outlast 
violence. Love will conquer hate.”

According to the event page on 

Facebook, the walkout was part of 
a national walkout movement at 
universities across the country.

“This walkout is a national 

movement that is happening in 
response to the election, as well 
as the increase in hate crimes and 
other forms of violence against 
marginalized (folks).” The event 
description says “We are doing 
this to hold President Schlissel 
and our Regents at the University 
of Michigan accountable for their 
claims of valuing diversity and 
student safety and well-being.”

There was a brief moment of 

silence at the Burton Memorial 
Tower, where students told stories 
of their own personal struggles.

At the end of the walkout, 

organizers 
asked 
for 
white 

supporters to block State Street so 
protesters could safely gather at 
Angell Hall for the speakout.

White students were asked by 

organizers to peacefully block the 
roads and talk to the police in order 
to protect the lives of brown and 
Black people, who were said to be 
targeted more at student gatherings. 
Rackham student Vikrant Garg, a 
walkout organizer, asked for a non-
violent protest and for all students 
involved to march peacefully.

“We see a lot of white folks 

here,” he said. “We need you on 
the sidelines to protect us … there 
are going to be parts where we 
shut down the street. We need you 
all to be there to protect us. This 
is nonviolence, we recognize that 
violent acts you may commit will, in 
the end, hurt us the most.”

The walkout is one of the largest 

events to take place after the 
election on campus. On election 
night, an impromptu vigil consisting 
of roughly 30 students coalesced 
on the Diag at about 3 a.m., an 
hour after Trump was declared 

victorious. The next night, a vigil 
attended by about 1,000 students 
took place, during which University 
President Mark Schlissel and CSG 
President David Schafer, an LSA 
senior, called for campus unity and 
inclusivity. Multiple protests against 
the president-elect and in reaction to 
the hate crimes has since occurred. 

At Wednesday’s walkout, LSA 

junior Victoria Johnson said she 
came to the event in hopes of 
reaching 
the 
administration’s 

attention regarding the problems 
facing minorities on campus.

“These problems have been 

boiling up for a long time — this isn’t 
anything new,” she said. “But I think 
the election, I think what happened, 
has been tipping the scale. Now 
these people who have always been 
against the rights for me and my 
rights and who I stand as a person, 
my identity. They feel empowered 
to speak out and act on these hateful 
feelings they have. And that’s why 
I am here, because my rights are at 
stake. And not just my rights, but my 
safety. And I feel like it’s important 
to make the University be held 
accountable for it all.”

WALKOUT
From Page 1A

about face taken by world around 
us. As events unfold rapidly, this 
world seems increasingly against 
us, our prosperity, our joy and 
our 
very 
existence. 
Tuesday 

morning, Michigan in Color was 
given the opportunity to reflect, 
to connect with the living and 
breathing history of civil rights 
activism in the United States by 
interviewing 
Reverend 
Jesse 

Jackson. MiC editors discussed in 
depth the impact of these recent 
elections with Reverend Jackson. 
We inquired about the future of 
this country, of activism and the 
continuing the fight to dismantle 
our interconnected oppression. We 
wanted to know what this moment 
meant to him in the context of a 
lifetime of activism. How had he 
been making sense of the larger 
sociopolitical implication of the 
recent election of Donald Trump? 
The 
conversation 
unfolded 

into a narrative of struggle, 
perseverance, and perspective. 
Although not religiously affiliated, 
all of the editors can attest to that 
fact that the experience was in 
fact spiritual. His words, etched in 
over half a century of experience, 
spoke to our past, present and 
future. A better future.

Four themes emerged from 

our 
discussion: 
accountability, 

responsibility, action and hope. No 
words could ever fully encapsulate 
the experience and we continue 
to process our conversation and 
its implication for our lives and 
the lives of those around us. 
However, the senior MiC editors 
present you with short reflections, 
intentionally weaving in the words 
of Reverend Jackson and the 
experiences of our campus climate 
and world. These messages we 
share with you all.

RESPONSIBILITY

“They were hoping students would 

be indifferent by telling them ‘you’re 
our future’. You are not our future. 
You are right now. What you do or 
going to do matters right now.”

Reverend Jesse Jackson guided us 

through the tumultuous journey of 
social and political change in a time 
where today’s climate is extremely 
hostile 
towards 
marginalized 

communities. He instilled a great 
sense of urgency upon us. In a time 
of violent oppression, it is no longer 
an issue of building the future, 
because the future is now. 

“What you do or don’t do matters 

right now. Whether you finish school 
or not matters right now. If you’re 
developing skills or not developing 
skills it matters right now. If you vote 
or you don’t vote, it matters right now. 
So you put political options on hold. 
No.”

Apathy has no place in the now. 

Making the passive decision to 
be silent is the active decision to 
accept oppression in the case that 
the tools are available for us to 
create change as individuals at the 
university. Yes, there is a struggle 
to build and protect resources, but 
simply witnessing it is definitely not 
enough. As individuals, we cannot 
let our grief, our anger, discourage 
us. It must liberate us to learn, 
develop and take political action.

In light of the presidential 

election, Reverend Jackson told us, 
in response to Colin Kaepernick’s 
decision to not vote, that the most 
important weapon combating the 
enemies of systemic oppression, 
prejudice and discrimination is 
voting.

“One weapon is marching feet. 

One weapon is voting. One weapon is 
boycotts. One weapon is intellectual 
strengths. One weapon is mass 
organization. The strongest of these 
weapons is voting, because it sets 
laws.”

We have the tools to us as 

communities to initialize change, 

but we cannot forget our civil duty 
to let our voice be heard through 
our vote — a right we have been 
afforded through the struggle of 
great visionaries.

“We marched too long and bled 

too much for the right to vote to walk 
away from it as if it does not matter.”

It is our responsibility to learn 

from those have paved the way for us 
to continue their cause. They have lit 
the torch to illuminate the darkness 
and they have passed it onto each 
and every one of us to get us out of it. 
We have a duty to make a change. It 
starts with ourselves. It starts with 
you, and it’s happening. Right now.

 — Christian Paneda, Michigan in 

Color Senior Editor

ACCOUNTABILITY

“If (a woman’s) hijab is snatched 

off, it’s like someone else is putting 
Blackface on. We should all be 
offended by each other’s burden. We 
should share the burden. The more 
you share, the easier it is to bear.”

As a nation we have to hold one 

another accountable for the America 
we want to be and for the values we 
have espoused. In his final months 
in office, President Obama urged the 
American people to hold their next 
president accountable, to make them 
better like we did for him. This is 
true now more than ever.

More than ever, we need to be 

engaging with our elected officials 
— and not just about the issues that 
affect us personally. We should all 
be disgusted by the hate crimes 
happening in our country. We 
should all be appalled by the idea 
of legislation that would militarize 
police, register Muslims, threaten 
women’s 
autonomy 
and 
strip 

LGBTQ rights. We have to organize 
and demand that our elected officials 
do not turn the clock on progress, no 
matter their political affiliation. As 
Reverend Jackson said, “we’ve got to 
protect the gains we’ve made.”

To the Republicans and Trump 

supporters who are quick to say 
they aren’t racists, misogynists 

or xenophobes, prove to us by 
your actions that you are not. As 
your candidate takes office, the 
onus is on you to make clear that 
you will not stand for the violent 
dismantling of minority rights. 
As Reverend Jackson poignantly 
stated, “to vote for Trump you’ve 
got to excuse an awful lot of mean 
things. You’ve got to excuse attacks 
on Muslim immigrants, excuse 
attacks on Black people. You’ve got 
to excuse misogyny… and so, when 
people make their choices there’s 
consequences for their choices.”

If you don’t stand for racism, 

misogyny and xenophobia, stand 
up for the rights of your fellow 
Americans.

For those of us most negatively 

impacted 
by 
the 
upcoming 

presidency, it is often difficult to 
engage with the other side. It should 
not always be on us to advocate 
for our lives and our rights to exist 
peacefully in this country. But that 
doesn’t mean we can disengage from 
the collective history our struggle 
for civil rights in this country. 
We cannot altogether disregard a 
political system, that without our 
protest, will continue to perpetuate 
our oppression. In this democracy, 
a system where the loudest voice 
rules, we cannot be silent.

 — Sabrina Bilimoria, Michigan in 

Color Senior Editor

ACTION

“As long as there’s massive 

direct action that’s nonviolent and 
disciplined with a point, you can be 
heard.”

The fight for civil rights is not 

over. The Voting Rights Act may 
have passed in 1965, but the 2016 
election was marred by the success 
of laws aimed to suppress Black 
and other marginalized voters. In 
addition to still fighting for the right 
to vote, xenophobia, racism and 
sexism are now being turned into 
policy. People question our Muslim 
friends’ loyalties and the Latinx 
community’s right to be here. The 

fight for civil rights is not over. 

We face social, political and 

economic concerns, but if we do 
not mobilize we will not be heard. 
Reverend Jackson said, “If they 
attempt to undermine protections 
to the right to vote, that’s cause 
for direct action. If they threaten 
Roe vs. Wade and women’s rights 
of self-determination, that’s cause 
for action. If there’s thoughts for 
increasing student loan debt, that’s 
cause for action.” If we stay silent, 
our hopes and dreams for a more 
equal America can not, and will not, 
be realized. We have two options, 
our vote and our voice. With our 
vote, we choose those who represent 
us. With our voice, through direct 
action, we represent ourselves and 
the causes we want righted. We 
must act to protect the gains we have 
made and to fight those who wish to 
take them away. However, the call 
to action is not a call to violence. 
Reverend Jackson said, “We need 
constant disciplined direct action, 
nonviolent because when action 
becomes violent, violence becomes 
the subject line instead of the subject 
itself.” Through peaceful protest we 
begin to raise awareness, through 
violence we create reason to disavow 
our actions. The stakes are too 
high to permit others to hijack our 
message. 

Fifty-one years ago, Reverend 

Jackson, Dr. Martin Luther King 
Jr., and other members of the Civil 
Rights Movement marched to end 
Jim Crow laws and create a better 
America. Today, we are privileged 
to follow in their tradition of using 
nonviolent direct action to fight for 
our cause.

— Ashley Tjhung, Michigan in 

Color Senior Editor

HOPE

“At the end of the day, we must go 

forward with hope and not backward 
by fear and division.There’s a tug of 
war for the soul of America. We’ve 
survived apart, but living together, 
that’s the great American challenge.”

Reverend Jackson has seen it 

all. He has labored in the trenches 
for decades and endured a lifetime 
of systemic oppression, prejudice 
and discrimination. He’s witnessed 
first hand some of our greatest 
historical victories as people of color, 
but he’s bore first hand some of the 
consequences of our failures. Yet, 
despite every obstacle, every failure, 
every challenge, he has remained 
steadfast in his fight for civil rights 
and social justice.

His life and experiences are are 

a testament that today, we must 
not lose hope. Just as he and the 
activists who have come before us 
were longsuffering in their struggle 
for justice and equality, we too must 
continue our struggle to be seen, 
heard and understood. What our 
society faces now is yet another 
changing tide in America’s racial 
and political climate that we must 
overcome. As Martin Luther King Jr. 
said, “The arc of the moral universe 
is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Reverend Jackson tells us we 

must acknowledge the challenges 
that face us and work together to 
address them. We must learn to 
share the burdens of marginalized 
communities. We must recognize 
the selling of fear and false hope by 
those in power and work to find our 
own genuine hope.

The heart and soul of America is 

at stake, and the greatest challenge 
ahead of us lies in our ability to unify 
to fight this good fight for justice. 
Will we continue to be divided or 
are will we learn to work and live 
together? 

— Alyssa Brandon, Michigan in 

Color Senior Editor

“You must position yourself with 

your moral weaponry. We intend not 
to marginalize apartheid, we intend 
to eliminate it. We don’t attempt 
to marginalize those opposed to a 
woman’s right to self-determination, 
we intend to fight for the women’s 
right to self-determination. The lines 
are drawn clearly.” — Reverend Jesse 
Jackson.

JACKSON
From Page 1A

student advisers to the committee.

Hyde received 1,152 responses 

from seniors by midnight Monday, 
of which 97 percent expressed a 
negative opinion about replacing 
speakers with videos.

She 
said 
she 
decided 
to 

circulate 
the 
survey 
as 
part 

of a larger complaint to the 
bicentennial 
committee 
and 

the subcommittee dedicated to 
planning 
the 
commencement 

ceremonies because she anticipated 
a more traditional celebration to 
commemorate graduation from the 
University.

“You could do it in addition, but 

it shouldn’t change the program 
because people have been looking 
forward to potentially being a 
student 
speaker,” 
Hyde 
said. 

“They’ve been coming with all 
these different ideas to talk about 
and be inspiring to their fellow 
classmates and future colleagues. 
And they want to have some big-
name, inspiring person coming 
and talking with them to inspire 
them for their future as well. This 
is supposed to be a celebration and 
you’re supposed to be excited about 
it, but I feel like a video doesn’t do 
that justice.”

The press release, University 

spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald said 
the aim of the University is to make 

the event memorable for attendees.

“One voice is not enough 

to fully celebrate this historic 
commencement,”he said. “We want 
to make this a truly memorable 
experience for the students of 
our bicentennial class and their 
families.”

According to the release, the 

ceremony will include a music 
performance 
by 
a 
nationally 

recognized individual or group, 
as well as speeches from and 
recognition of alumni and a video 
created 
by 
current 
students. 

Graduating students will also sit on 
the field for the event, a break from 
tradition.

Details of the ceremony are 

slated to be announced in early 
2017.

LSA senior Francesca Sands 

who was sent the survey this 
week, said in an interview before 
the University release she was 
surprised and angry at the thought 
of replacing either speaker with a 
video.

Sands 
said 
she 
anticipated 

commencement 
speakers 
who 

would address current events, 
especially in light of the recent win 
of President-elect Donald Trump. 
She said she felt a video could not 
sufficiently address the particular 
salient issues facing soon-to-be 
graduates currently on campus.

“Especially with the climate 

after the election, with everything 
socially and politically, we’re going 
to be graduating terrified, pretty 

much, and I think that needs to be 
addressed,” she said. “I feel like a 
video highlighting parts of other 
speeches from past years isn’t 
addressed to us or the time we’re 
going to be entering the world in. I 
was disappointed.”

She also voiced her concern over 

the perceived lack of transparency 
and student input in the planning 
process.

“I’m worried that people will be 

caught off guard by this decision in 
March, whenever they’re supposed 
to release the speaker,” Sands said. 
“And then there’s nothing they can 
do about it.”

Hyde closed the survey Monday 

night after receiving additional 
information from the Bicentennial 
Advisory Committee that it would 
not entirely replace both speakers 
with videos. However, she said the 
committee had not communicated 
this to the student advisers she 
knew on the committee at the time 
she released the survey.

She 
said, 
in 
general, 
she 

felt the committee could have 
communicated more with students 
from the start to confirm this 
was an acceptable change to the 
traditions of the ceremony.

“Even if they were planning on 

changing it, the students should 
have been consulted,” Hyde said.

BACKLASH
From Page 1A

MICHIGAN IN COLOR

“For what? 

Because you want 
to see my hair?”

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

