By Cassandra Baptista
She needed support, but for two days, she struggled with silence.
Cheyenne Postell, a junior writing, literature and publishing major, arrived on her floor on Oct.19 to find the word “nigga” written on a bulletin board. Being one of two African American students on the floor and the Residence Assistant who assembled the board, Postell felt targeted by the racial slur.
Her isolation only increased in the two days leading up to a floor meeting because Postell’s peers did not talk to her about the incident—the kind of situation the Center for Diversity’s Campus Conversations On Race (CCOR) tries to prevent through their dialogue on minority issues.
Started in 2004 by William “Smitty” Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Diversity, CCOR is a student run program that strives to start open conversations among peers about race. This semester, the program is organized into eight sessions of a maximum of 10 people, and all the sessions are almost filled to capacity. The different sections meet once a week for five weeks, and each session is two hours long.
Two student facilitators, who are required to have participated in the program the previous year, lead each session with a case study. The facilitators are trained for 16 hours by Tikesha Morgan, director of Multicultural Student Affairs, and Cathryn Edelstein, Faculty Advisor for CCOR, who also teaches Fundamentals of Speech Communications.
Edelstein, who teaches her student facilitators to have an open mind and keep the conversations focused, explained why it is especially important for Emerson students to be aware of the power of language.
“We are a school of communication,” Edelstein said. “We have students here who are going out into the world and are going to be managing all types of media, and we need to be aware of sensitive issues.”
Because students might feel uncomfortable discussing racism and discrimination, CCOR’s faculty advisor observes the dynamics of each session group to make sure its members connect and create an atmosphere conducive to open communication.
“How often does anyone get to talk about really sensitive issues knowing it’s in a safe environment?” said Edelstein, who listed “sharing, learning, and communicating” as three components to combating ignorance. “I think once students start sharing their views with somebody and are able to hear opposing views, it opens their eyes to how hurtful things like [racial slurs] really are.”
In order to encourage more students to get involved with the program, co-facilitators receive up to two non-tuition credits. Smith explained that he believes Emerson should integrate CCOR into the college’s core curriculum so that the program can reach more of the Emerson community.
“There needs to be a requirement,” Edelstein said. “It’s something that will not only serve students well on their resumes, but will serve them well in life.”
While Postell said she thinks Emerson is taking steps to address minority issues on campus, she does not think she will see those goals realized in her time at Emerson. She hopes that in the future the college will not exhaust its energy on reacting to problems after they occur.
“I think we need to talk about things like this before they happen,” said Postell, who fought back tears as she remembered the “strong silence” she encountered from her peers. “It would be helpful if people spoke what was on their minds. With no one saying anything, it felt like there was a large possibility that the Emerson community didn’t see anything wrong with the slur. [Conversation] would help us move on through the year without somebody feeling as singled out as I did.”
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