Hundreds Rally on Marsh Plaza against Racism

Universities nationwide outraged by University of Missouri racial incidents

Boston University Students Protest Against Racism

Racism at the University of Missouri brought BU students to Marsh Plaza Friday for a rally, where TeAndrea Nicole Jackson (CAS’17) (with bullhorn) and Yasmin Younis (CAS’18) (foreground) addressed the crowd. Photos by Dana Quigley

November 17, 2015
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Hundreds of BU students filled Marsh Plaza Friday in solidarity with black peers at the University of Missouri, where the administration’s handling of recent racial turmoil forced the resignation of its president.

The rally was the latest in a nationwide string of campus protests expressing support for the Missouri students, including at Boston College and Emerson College last week.

“We’re going to get up close and personal for this one,” said TeAndrea Nicole Jackson (CAS’17), a rally organizer and one of two students who addressed the crowd, beckoning listeners to draw close in the middle of the plaza. Using a bullhorn, she said, “Here we stand as beacons of hope and heralds of change, no matter how eventual.…To the students of color at Mizzou”—nickname of the University of Missouri—“we, the students of color at Boston University and our allies, stand with you in solidarity.…To people of color everywhere, we stand with you. To all our white allies, we say this: No more. No more silent bystanding.

“If you stand with us, if you walk with us, walk all the way. Stand all the way,” she said to applause. Her voice rippling with emotion at times, Jackson continued, “To those who would threaten your sense of safety, we say: Enough. Enough. There are those who call for peace, and one day, so will we. But today, we call for justice, because peace before justice is not peace; it’s silence. Too long have people of color been silenced in this country. Too long have black people lived in fear in this country. Too long have we been treated like the perpetual enemy of the American state. Too long have we been terrorized and persecuted on the basis of race.”

The second student speaker was a transfer student from the University of Missouri. Yasmin Younis (CAS’18) thanked the crowd for “standing in solidarity with not just Mizzou…but all the other universities all around this great country that are dealing with some serious problems.”

She described her former university as “an institution that I dearly love,” adding that “it will always have a special place in my heart. Mizzou was the place where I found my voice, my passion for social activism, and ultimately my individual strength.…Mizzou is an amazing institution, regardless of how the administration handled incredibly sensitive issues.”

Boston Universty Students Protest Against Racism
Approximately 250 students turned out for Friday’s rally against racism.

University of Missouri System President Timothy M. Wolfe resigned November 9—and the system chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, announced he would take a lower-ranking job—after reports of administration indifference to campus racism, which included racial slurs against the African American student body president. The situation gained national attention after African American players on the university’s football team refused to participate in football-related activities until Wolfe resigned or was removed.

Protesters there linked their cause to the killing in Ferguson, Mo., last year of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man shot to death by a white police officer. A grand jury declined to indict the officer. Last week, black students at Mizzou received death threats via social media, and a similar threat subsequently was sent to Howard University students on Thursday.

Organizers of the BU rally spread word of the event through a Facebook page, asking attendees to wear black, and many in the crowd, estimated at 250 by Boston University Police, did. After the rally, organizers invited BU community members to a discussion about race and racism at BU’s Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground.

Interviewed by BU Today, Yacer Lisieux (CAS’19) said that he was “here mainly to support the African American students at Missouri. Honestly, I find it pretty scary that it can happen on a campus.…It’s actually shocking to me.” An African American, he said that BU “is better than that, but I’ve never counted out the option that anything that’s happening in Missouri could have happened over here and at other schools across the country.”

As for what might come out of the rally, he said, necessary social change to diminish racism “won’t happen overnight. It’s going to take time.”

“I’m glad that we, at BU, have a student community active enough to look at what’s happening and say, ‘This isn’t right,’ and to act on it instead of staying mindless and uninformed,” Pranav Ramineni (CAS’19) said in an interview before the rally. “The nationwide actions…are amazing, a symbol of solidarity among the millennials, more or less stating that on the issue of race, we will not be pushed around.”

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Hundreds Rally on Marsh Plaza against Racism

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  • Rich Barlow

    Senior Writer

    Photo: Headshot of Rich Barlow, an older white man with dark grey hair and wearing a grey shirt and grey-blue blazer, smiles and poses in front of a dark grey backdrop.

    Rich Barlow is a senior writer at BU Today and Bostonia magazine. Perhaps the only native of Trenton, N.J., who will volunteer his birthplace without police interrogation, he graduated from Dartmouth College, spent 20 years as a small-town newspaper reporter, and is a former Boston Globe religion columnist, book reviewer, and occasional op-ed contributor. Profile

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There are 11 comments on Hundreds Rally on Marsh Plaza against Racism

  1. Thank you to these amazing students for demanding that BU be a welcoming and nurturing environment for all. The outpouring of hundreds of students of ALL colors standing in unity was inspiring and thrilling to behold. I was and am proud and honored to stand with them.

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  2. Yeah, I’m outraged by the overt racism expressed by BLM protesters too. The very utterance of the term “White Privilege” is explicitly racist, as if being white is some sort of moral failing.

    You’ve got to love, “Protesters there linked their cause to the killing in Ferguson, Mo., last year of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man shot to death by a white police officer.” That’s the same Michael Brown that just committed strong-arm robbery a shopkeeper half his size just moments before and was in the act of physically assaulting Officer Darren Wilson, right? Yeah, I thought so. Strange that no one seems concerned about the murder of DeAndre Joshua who was was shot in the head, and then a flammable liquid poured on him and set afire inside his vehicle, apparently for testifying truthfully to the Wilson Grand Jury. Apparently those are the consequences of testifying against the Michael Brown false narrative.

    I wonder if the BU protesters also expressed solidarity with their ideological brethren at Dartmouth College who physically assaulted peaceful students studying in the library this past week?

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    1. I hope you do further research before posting such incendiary claims in the future. DeAndre Joshua never testified before the grand jury.
      Also, while the term ‘white privilege’ does explicitly call out the differences in race, it is not ‘racism’ as the term is usually used. Please do not draw a false equivalence between being asked to examine how factors beyond your control may have played a role in bettering your life and being forced to continually confront factors beyond your control to survive.

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      2. We do not know for certain whether the DeAndre Joshua testified before the grand jury, because the names are kept secret. However, it was rumored that he was and we also know that in the community people were pressured to lie. Evidence seems to strongly support his targeting because he was believed to have testified, whether he had or not.

        “Also, while the term ‘white privilege’ does explicitly call out the differences in race, it is not ‘racism’ as the term is usually used.” Is just about the most ludicrous statement I have ever heard. “Whit privilege” does not call out the differences in race? Well, I guess the English language has no meaning, then. As far as, “as the term is usually used”, is part of the problem.

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    2. Geoff, will you openly endorse the disgraceful, revolting treatment accorded to Michael Brown’s body? He was left to rot in the Missouri summer sun for OVER FOUR HOURS. That is literally desecrating the body & cannot be justified by any actions on Mr. Brown’s part.

      As the saying goes about their extremely low standard of evidence, “A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich,” i.e. most cases move forward — except when the word of policemen is involved. Eventually, we know, a MO grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson. It surely looks like Mr. Brown has fewer rights than a ham sandwich.

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      1. Jose, will you openly endorse the disgraceful, revolting treatment accorded Officer Wilson? He was hung out to dry for protecting himself from a brutal assault and doing his duty. Mobs called for his head and rioted to try to force an injustice. Indeed, a severe injustice was done to Officer Wilson and he essentially lost is livelihood and is in hiding because he did his duty.

        Also let’s not pretend that the major claim here is about how Michael Brown’s body was treated. The claim, the lie, has always been “Hand up, don’t shoot!” It’s a complete lie and fabrication. Also I don’t need a grand jury to make the facts clear. They’re there for anyone to see and the conclusions are obvious to any unbiased observer.

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  3. Wow did you miss the mark on this story or what? Did you do any research on this at all prior to writing this article? Soon as I read your article while commuting in this morning I was outraged at what could be going on and wanted to understand more of the back story which you seem to have left completely out. However, the more I read about it the more I learned. When you write for BU you should be focused on truth. Where does your article state that the student body president of Mizzou had lied on social media about the KKK being on campus and the national guard being called in? After being called out on it he went online and apologized for his false claim, and there is much more to this story that you have failed to unveil.

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  5. “separate but equal”

    ASDF’s comments resurrect the grievously flawed reasoning embodied in Plessy vs. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court decision sanctioning legal segregation. In 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education reversed Plessy, stating that separate facilities are inherently unequal. Given the undeniable racial basis for that inequality, “separate but equal” IS racist — inherently so. (Are you old enough to remember “Colored Only” signs? I remember them.)

    As for Geoff’s remarks, well, white privilege is real whether or not whites acknowledge it; it benefits millions of European Americans. Accusing Africans Americans of racism, BECAUSE they want Black lives valued, would be laughable if it wasn’t so offensive. Black “racism” is a less serious threat to civil society than white racism, because the latter is backed by great economic & political power, not least the institutional racism of the judicial system & especially our out-of-control police.

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  6. Maybe we are confused its not 1960, someone name calling you should not
    make you crawl under a cocoon or cry racism.
    Too long have people of color been silenced in this country.
    Too long have black people lived in fear in this country.
    Too long have we been treated like the perpetual enemy of the American state.
    Too long have we been terrorized and persecuted on the basis of race.

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