Over the course of the fall 2021 semester, the Elizabethtown College Center for Global Understanding and Peacemaking (CGUP) has hosted multiple programs and events related to its first annual Forum on White Supremacy and Global Colonization.
According to CGUP, the forum can be concisely summarized as being “focused on examination of how white supremacy and colonization have functioned in various contexts across the globe and individual empowerment to circumvent cycles and systems of oppression.”
This semester has focused mainly on issues of race and racism, tackling the theme of “White Supremacy” on a domestic scope. In the spring, the focus will switch to the second theme of “Global Colonization.”
To mark this transition, in the beginning of the spring 2022 semester there will be one final event related to the work completed by students and faculty during the fall 2021 semester.
One of the events that students had the option to participate in this fall was a book group. There were two book groups, one for students of color and one for white students. The reason for dividing the students in this way had to do with the themes of the books themselves. The text “Me and White Supremacy” by Layla Saad is a book targeted towards white allies interested in antiracism work and it was decided that it would be best to offer students of color an alternate text that was more relevant to their lived experiences as opposed to having them explore a text geared towards white people.
In order to create a space for more intimate conversations, this group was split up— with one half being facilitated by Chaplain and Director of Religious Life Reverend Amy Shorner-Johnson and the other being facilitated by Lancaster-based activist Erika Fitz.
The text chosen for the second group was “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male Power” by Ijeoma Oluo. This text was much more focused on how racism is experienced by marginalized individuals. This group was facilitated by associate professor of psychology Dr. Dawnielle Simmons, who has collaborated consistently with Haley-Mize over the course of the semester.
“I wanted to give them the opportunity and to center their voices and experiences as part of that group,” Interim Director of the CGUP Dr. Shannon Haley-Mize said, discussing the choice to create two separate book groups.
The event in the spring is an art exhibit featuring work made by students as part of their participation in the second book-group, giving students of color at the College a platform to creatively express the ways in which race and racism impact their lives.
Also featured in this exhibit, titled “Putting White Supremacy on Notice,” will be artwork from the students in Haley-Mize’s First-Year Seminar (FYS) “You Got Schooled: Identity and Power and the Traditional American Experience.”
The artwork from Haley-Mize’s FYS will feature pieces created by both white students and students of color exploring racism and prejudice as it impacts the local community. Topics to be explored include racism on campus and the history of Elizabethtown as a sundown town.
“They were challenged to create [artwork] of their experience as students of color in a predominantly white institution in a predominantly white, rural small town,” Haley-Mize said.
In order to facilitate a broader conversation about the role of art in discussions of race and racism, artist and assistant professor of art at the University of Arkansas Zora J. Murff will be coming on campus alongside two graduate students, M’Shinda Imani Abdullah-Broaddus and Tay Butler, to showcase their artwork and talk with students.
This exhibit will be located in the High Library and is currently slated to open on Jan. 24, 2022. Student participation and engagement is encouraged, members of the community will be asked to respond via flip grid if interested.
“Our goal is dialogue,” Haley-Mize said.
