A Guest Post from Rhodes student & MSPJC Intern, Schaeffer Mallory:
The anonymous social media platform, Yik Yak, hit Rhodes campus at the beginning of the fall semester. Since its introduction on campus, many posts have been vehemently misogynistic and homophobic. Then, in late October, there began to appear vitriolic, racist comments stating thing such as “All Black Leave Campus” and “Black should be out on leashes like moms use on little kids.” In the following weeks, there emerged substantial energy and action across campus to address both the injustices done on Yik Yak and the broader, systemic sources of oppression on campus. This energy eventually coalesced into over 90 students – representing a number of racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds and coming from an equally diverse group of student organizations – coming together during a BSA Townhall meeting to collectively produce a comprehensive and intersectional list of actionable short- and long-term demands for the administration As such, a campus-wide coalition has been built to take ownership of this list of demands, to present it to the administration, and to catalyze the long and arduous work of tackling all forms of oppression on this campus.
This group is called Rhodes United (RU) and on Friday, Nov. 21 at 12:30pm we are calling for a campus-wide walkout on oppression to take place at Evergreen Church (613 University St). We invite all community members to attend, as this is an issue not confined to the Rhodes Campus and, moreover, Rhodes should be held accountable by the city that houses and fosters it.
Check out recent media coverage on the issue by clicking here.