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The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion sponsored its first social justice equity lecture last Thursday featuring Tim Wise, anti-racist educator and social justice activist.

We need those of us who are white to be willing to go and read the words of and really listen to people of color when they talk about race, Wise said. Its fine to come to this talk, (but) the question is are we really listening when people of color say the same things?

In order to involve people in the social justice conversation who are not already, you just keep having the conversation until people get dragged and compelled to come, according to Wise.

Im of mixed mind on this, but obviously, the more you have the conversation, the more likelihood that people will be caught up in the web of that conversation at some point, Wise said. My mixed mind piece of this is look, I want everyone to come and engage in this discussion, but I also realize that sometimes preaching to the choir isnt always a bad thing. I think the more that we practice and the more we engage, the better well get at it.

Wise went on to state that he doesnt necessarily want the adversary in the room all of the time.

I dont want him to know what Im planning. I dont want him to necessarily know what were thinking, Wise said. So Id love for more people to be engaged and have this hard conversation, but it cant be forced and in the meantime, we got to talk to the ones who come and we got to build with the ones who come.

Make America Great Again, which was President Trumps 2016 campaign slogan, is coming from people who think the past was this wonderful splendid place, ignoring how not splendid it was for millions of their countrymen and countrywomen, according to Wise.

Lets be real, it isnt just the past we (white Americans) have a problem with, Wise said. Its the truth, the complexity of the past.

According to Wise, history is important because too often when we talk about race and racism, white Americans in particular are extraordinarily quick to look at people of color, who talk about the past and say Why do you have to bring that up? That was a long time ago. Why cant we move on? Why cant we get over it?

If you dont understand what happened yesterday, metaphorically speaking or last year...its very hard for you to look at whats going on this week and understand it fully because the past and the present are so inextricably connected, Wise said.

Audience members learned many things about the history of racism in America from the social justice lecturer, including redlining.

A lot of the history was kind of new to me, said Chloe Soetaert, senior graphic design major. I didnt know a lot about the redlining thing. It was kind of one of those things where you kind of assume that theres something going down, but he explained it more thoroughly and like he said, its really important to learn the history.

Redlining was a very common practice for decades and it was perfectly legal until 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was passed and even after that, they continued in sort of indirect ways, according to Wise.

Banks would take maps of neighborhoods and they would put them up on the wall in the loan office, Wise said. They would take a red marker and they would draw a line around the black community and anybody who lived in the boundaries of that red line would not be able to get a loan. As a result, that meant that certain neighborhoods, particularly in the cities, were starved of capital. Essentially, they just werent able to build wealth.

President Allison Garrett attended the event as well and said that she was very grateful that Wise came to ESU.

He clearly has such a command of facts in such an engaging way of sharing what sometimes is a hard message, but that we needed to hear, Garrett said. Im just excited that Emporia State could have someone of his caliber in to present and hope that we can have similar terrific presenters in for the future.

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is scheduled to send students to the University of Texas for the Big XII Conference on Black Student Government Feb. 16 thru 19.

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Tim Wise Educates on History of Racism in America - The Bulletin