James Baldwin once stated, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” His frustration with the United States was borne out of the dream it sold being inconsistent with the reality that he experienced in New York.
His experience wasn’t unique to the topic or his time period. Frustration over the dream of a utopian society not correlating with a grim reality doesn’t escape earnest reflection in 2018, nor UF. In my experience in particular, I saw UF as an unfulfilled promise to people of color from the moment I arrived.
The promise of UF, complete with professional photographs of students and carefully manicured statements highlighting the importance of diversity, sells the idea of a campus dedicated to equity in practice. In a few respects, they lived up to that promise. In 2017, students of color protested to keep two historically significant cultural houses, and the university eventually acquiesced to their demands.
However, in my time at UF I have seen more instances of students of color facing intimidation and, sometimes, putting their physical safety in danger to justify their humanity. In 2017, Richard Spencer’s speaking engagement on campus put students of color in a difficult position of choosing between protesting or not. In 2017, students of color also experienced intimidation with cultural decorations being torn down from dorm rooms, nooses left in classrooms and signs at Walker Hall being pulled from the ground.
As much as I would like to attribute this to isolated incidents, UF has also been complicit in this systemically. As of 2017, 14 percent of buildings on campus are named after individuals who in some way upheld discrimination or bigotry. The orange and blue loses a little luster when I hear, “if you’re not a Gator, then you’re Gator bait,” being aware of both the racialized history of the phrase and the fact that George Zimmerman last week threatened Beyonce and Jay-Z with the same imagery. The number of black students attending UF has dwindled for over a decade with the university not offering the results it promised to improve those numbers since my freshman year. By the time events transpired at graduation, it felt like another extension of the visceral treatment students of color, myself included, have experienced since my arrival in 2015.
However, I still believe in UF’s capacity to change. It is only a matter of who ought to lead it.
Efforts that have resulted in systemic change have almost always come from students and concerned citizens in Gainesville, who care about how the university’s decisions affect them. During the protests to distinguish the Institute of Black Culture and Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, called La Casita, last year, women of color were integral in ensuring that future Gators will be able to enjoy the comforts of their culture when they’re in Gainesville.
While it’s toxic to put the burden exclusively on women of color, we ought to do more to empower forward thinking women of color into positions of leadership. I believe in a UF that does everything in its power to exceed the standard of reaching out to high school students in impoverished communities in rural towns and large cities. Finally, as impressive it is to be ranked eighth best public college and university in the country, I hope UF can one day be as vocal about its efforts to elevate graduate and professional scholars of color to new heights too.
We need UF to change. Now, it’s more urgent than ever.
Oliver Telusma is a UF alumnus and was rushed off the stage at a graduation ceremony in May, after which the university was criticized for its treatment of graduating people of color.
