DIVESTMENT and NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION
Divestment is the process of removing your support whether it is physical, emotional or financial from someone, something or some idea that your find unacceptable. In the 1980s Michigan State University was the first major universities to divest from South Africa. In doing this they took a moral and financial stance that said they were against apartheid. That decision paved the way for many other universities and corporations to do the same; today after the passage of Proposition 2 and “democratic” elimination of affirmative action we face a similar question with the elimination of minority student services under the moronic claim of "redundancy of services."
The minority student programs MSU President Lou Anna Simon and Student Affairs President Lee June are working so feverishly to dismantle were brought into existence by protest and struggle. Sacrifices (of life and liberty) were made by people of all colors on an individual and group level, the bus boycotts, lunch counter sit ins and the militant persistence of groups like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee are important examples of PLANNED ACTIVE RESISTANCE to American racism and hatred. These movements we celebrate each year with speeches and ever dwindling public marches were ones of active transformation where individuals like you and me collaborated to challenge on a broad scale the injustices and racism so causally perpetrated and cloaked by fiscal responsibility.
In his book “Why We Can’t Wait” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said this about non-violent resistance.
“When, for decades you have been able to make a man compromise his manhood by threatening him with a cruel and unjust punishment, and when suddenly he turns upon you and says: ‘Punish me. I do not deserve it. But because I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the world will know that I am right and you are wrong.’ You hardly know what to do. You feel defeated and secretly ashamed. You know that this man is as good a man as you are; that from some mysterious source he has found the courage and the conviction to meet physical force with soul force.”
This, brothers and sisters, is the essence of divestment. Accepting the double burden of punishment and the obligation to bear it under any circumstance. At this moment we have very few venues of resistance open to us. We are literally to the point where the only thing we have to withdraw is ourselves. We cannot allow ourselves to be used as tokens. Dr. King said this about tokenism, “There is a critical distinction, however, between a modest start and tokenism. The tokenism Negroes condemn is recognizable because it is an end in itself. ITS PURPOSE IS NOT TO BEGIN A PROCESS, BUT INSTEAD TO END THE PROCESS OF PROTEST AND PRESSURE. It is a hypocritical gesture, not a constructive first step. (King,Why We Can’t Wait)
Our presence here demands we find a morally acceptable and socially effective way of answering this decision, pressuring the university to take a more active stance and providing moral non-violent direct action leadership to other students of good faith what ever the color of their skin.
In order to do this we must draw lines between acceptable and unacceptable actions/ decisions on the part of the University and it's administration. The same rebuke goes to those administrators who should because of their own personal history of benefiting from Affirmative Action programs as Black men and White women be working to perserve this legacy of social justice instead of working diligently to take it apart.
Our recognition of this should focus on the “heightening of contradictions” (Umemoto, K) between ourselves and any institution of higher learning that plans to undermine social progress beneath the guise of liberalism and voodoo economics.
WAR OF THE FLEA
Heightening Contradictions is a strategy to prepare people for confrontational tactics. You educate them with the aim of involving them in confrontations to win demands. The greater the amount of pressure in any situation the more incentive there is to resolve it.
One way to apply that pressure, one way to divest is by COMPLETELY REMOVING ALL TRACES OF OURSELVES ON PAPER FROM THE UNIVERSITY. Remaining where we are - but withdrawing our support we become non complicit with the plans of Michigan State University. Doing this we expose the contradictions between us and those who have moved against us. In fact, this entire line of social change reasoning is based on the fundamental belief in the irreconcilable differences in values, beliefs and most of all interests between us and them. (Umemoto, K.).
And finally we must ask ourselves in view of its race, class, political and economic interests can the University be viewed as neutral? Operating within a vacuum, separate from the prejudices and short comings of its administrators? And yes, my statement applies to the black and latino administrators involved in this travesty. Their sin of betrayal and complicity is as clear as the mark God gave Cain after he slew Abel.
Am I my brother's keeper?
The response of the upper administration since 2003 until the recent admission they are planning on eliminating all programs for minority students positions their neutrality as weak and insincere. From our "minority representatives" sends an implicit message of compliance with prevailing thoughts and attitudes of those who are in favor of eliminating equal education access for all people.
HOW TO DO THIS
In 1999, Xicano students protesting for the creation of Xicano studies at MSU went to the registrars office and changed their racial designation to white (Sell, M. State News, Feb. 1999). There were no repercussions to them for doing this. In doing this, they unequivocally stated they would not allow the university to continue using their presence here as selling tool for diversity – when in fact the university through its actions did not support this diversity they spoke so eloquently about.
Student divestment from MSU means doing the same with one difference. Instead of white we choose OTHER. This allows white students who understand the hypocrisy of our administrators (especially our "minority" representatives) to join us in this highly effective and clear statement of our opposition to the university’s “neutral” stance and allows us the power to bring all cultural events at MSU to a grinding halt. We really MUST STOP PERFORMING LIKE TRAINED MONKEYS FOR APPROVAL AND ACCEPTANCE. Currently, our only power is to divest ourselves and what we represent from this structure; once we do this, we can begin to build parallel structures by students that work outside of the University and provide the support and necessary structure to allow our respective communities to grow, organize and flourish – self determination for all people.
To be sure - following this plan means directly experiencing and participating in both the sacrifice and struggle that is quintessential to the nature of non-violent resistance. Implementing a total cultural blackout by students of color and their allies on campus is unprecedented. Eliminating student of color presence along with the number of white students on campus is unprecedented. It has never been done before - ever. That we should turn to our white allies and white students in general is beyond question. Dr. King writes,
“In the nonviolent army, there is room for everyone who wants to join up. There is no color distinction. There is no examination, no pledge, except that, as a solider … nonviolent soldiers are called upon to examine and burnish their greatest weapons – their heart, their conscience, their courage and their sense of justice.” (King, ML.1963)
Will we follow Dr. King's call to actively resist or meekly betray the future? We, the students faculty and staff of Michigan State University must divest from this institution. It is within our power to boycott MSU.
