Staff Editorial: Ignorance will not be rewarded

Nubian Message Staff

The Nubian Message was created in 1992 to give a voice to the African American community on campus. Our first issue was published on North Carolina Central University’s campus due to initially receiving absolutely no university funding by NC State and being prohibited from using NC State’s media equipment. We have had to fight to have a voice on this campus.

The Nubian Message is our voice. It is our safe space. This publication is a platform where the African American community can speak freely just like every other American via the First Amendment which we were repeatedly reminded of when students referred to African American students as the N word earlier this semester.

Through our ongoing struggle to have an equal voice on this campus we’ve recognized other minorities and marginalized communities who are fighting to have their voices heard too. How privileged, racist, and full of ignorance do you have to be to equate our fight to “anti-white propaganda”? Let it be known that pro-black does not mean anti-white. As if us fighting for equal rights is a threat to your life.

This election has fostered an environment of hatred and has given a platform to this hatred so that individuals like the “white comrade” feel as if they need to organize and “fight against white genocide.” This election year we have had to keep up with local, national, and global news, and we want to know when and where did a deliberate killing of white people occur? At what point did it become dangerous and a threat to your life to be a white person in America? Within 48 hours of the election, it became dangerous for Muslims to be themselves openly in America.  Muslim women are having conversations about whether or not to wear their hijabs in public because they’re being harassed about wearing them. Immigrants fear that their lives as they know it will be snatched away from them. Members of the Latinx community are being told to go back to Mexico. A whole community. Just Mexico. African-Americans, descendants of slaves who were brought here unwillingly over 400 years ago, are being told to go back to Africa. Yet no one is telling white people to go back to whatever respective European country their ancestors came from voluntarily.

It’s dangerous for LGBTQ+ people to hold hands with their significant other and simply be themselves when people are pulling over, getting out of their cars, and beating them until they see blood. It’s dangerous for black people to be black when black people are getting killed and their bodies left on the streets for hours after being shot by cops, feeling as if we need to justify that our life matters and then having the rebuttal of “All Lives Matter” tossed at us.

When exactly did all lives matter in America? What period of time are you referring to when you say, “Make America Great Again?” The “white comrade” exemplifies privilege in that we hear ”not all white people[…]” yet marginalized groups across America are being generalized by stereotypes and therefore threatened by individuals who now proudly express their racists, homophobic and misogynistic views that threaten our humanity, our rights and our lives.

Another aspect that must be acknowledged is the powerful sense of privilege these culprits have. The sheets that were put in student media drop boxes included links to websites that stated, “Bow down n**ger” and refer to people of Middle Eastern descent as “hajis,” yet the first line of the flyers read, “the media will call this hate.” Well we members of the Nubian Message staff have absolutely no intentions of calling this speech anything else. This speech is of malicious intent and the content is so morally bankrupt that each byline was hard to read, let alone the actual articles.

The bigotry and hate speech evidenced by the recent incidents on campus tear communities apart. This campus already had enough tension without these deliberate acts of prejudice and ignorance. Our campus is supposed to be better than this. However, as of late we, the Nubian Message staff, have been wondering what exactly our campus is. Every time it seems as if we have turned the corner and made progress, a moment like this happens. It begs the question: are we devolving into a campus that deeply fears diversity or did we ever truly get to a level of tolerance and understanding that many believed we had?

We are tired of constantly being told that we are less than everyone around us. We are tired of being told that we only got into this school because of a program like Affirmative Action. We are tired of being told to shut up. That means that we will not stop writing, speaking out our thoughts, or pursuing our education. We are strong willed, and after suffering and fighting for hundreds of years of oppression, we are not about to give up now.