By: Dominque Brodie (’19), Editor in Chief
“My idea of revolution is pretty common sense.”
The idea, that is, of senior Charity Lackey. Charity, a student in UNC’s school of Nursing, is pretty well known for her activism on and around UNC’s campus. Activism (and revolution, as Charity speaks of it) is something that requires a pretty simple viewpoint. Charity says “at least right now, its just a change of morals. That’s how I think of it, just changing what’s important to you.”
Charity spent her first two years at Carolina on the Track & Field team. The busy lifestyle of a varsity athlete, in addition to the “rat race” culture of UNC, allowed her to focus much of her time and energy solely on academics and athletics. But at some point, Charity needed to shift what she saw as important. The college culture of focusing only on the things we see as most important can be detrimental to minorities on this campus and other campuses nationwide. The prioritization of first-hand commitments like class and work more or less force students to push all systematic and communal issues to the periphery in order to fulfill other obligations.
“Like, ‘I’m at college to get an education, to get a good job, to provide for my family and that’s it.’ It’s not about the community; it’s about your family. And that’s personal. You can’t tell someone not to consider that,” Charity explains. Her thoughts are reflective of the thoughts of many minority students, who are burdened every day with the high hopes of their families and friends and/or a perceived need to over-perform just to stay on par with white classmates. It’s difficult sometimes to find a balance and be able to completely commit oneself to being an activist without fearing the risks, but it is extremely important.
Charity speaks to just how important it is for individuals to use their time in college to align themselves with activism-driven ideologies and actions, saying “life just starts snowballing once you graduate, and I think that if you’re oriented in college, you can start making clear cut decisions that can align you with those morals.”
Engaging with activism early in one’s adult life doesn’t just bring about personal gain, though. It also seems pretty common sense for social movements like #BlackLivesMatter to begin with Black college students, as they historically have. During the Civil Rights & Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 70s, college students and young adults were at the forefront of the movement and made up a large portion of the grassroots organizers within the movement. People like Stokely Carmichael (who founded SNCC at Shaw University) and the Freedom Riders had heavy social and political influence as college students and we, today, have the power do the same.
Some people use this, among other things, to point out that we could be living in a second wave of the seemingly far removed Civil Rights Era. Many sentiments, resistance methods, and debates that persist among today’s activists are directly borrowed from activists of that time. But some of these debates can ultimately be distracting for people within and outside of the movement, as they were in the 1960s and 70s.
One major issue that too often goes (and has historically gone) unchallenged is misogyny within the Black community and the various ways that it has been manifested—during the Civil Rights & Black Power Movements, in the larger Black freedom movements today, and even on our campus. Charity commented specifically on the effect of gender politics at UNC, pointing out the fact that during last school year, the president of both the Black Student Movement and the National Pan-Hellenic Council were cis-gendered Black men while the leaders of the Real Silent Sam Coalition, in contrast, were queer Black women. BSM, NPHC, and RSSC were the main student groups represented within many of the protests and demonstrations that occurred on campus.
She states, “Everybody has a very different lived experience and all of them have very different leadership styles and communication styles. And you could just feel the push back from [some of] the men. Kind of like “I know best.”
On this campus, ironically, Black women (and especially Black queer women) have by and large been the most vocal and active in participating in and encouraging activism, and they’ve also been the most visible. This contradicts the general trend within many social movements throughout history. Misogyny has often allowed men to be placed at the center of the narrative surrounding activism and fights for freedom. But on our own campus, when a photo or news story surfaces about students protesting and demonstrating, the person featured is typically a woman. There is a much larger discussion to be had regarding the respective roles of women and men in Black social movements, but Charity and other women at Carolina consistently challenge the misogynistic stereotypes that pervade Black society.
There is also a larger discussion to be had regarding the lack of knowledge about Blackness and the history of fighting racism among many Black students. Regarding UNC students specifically, Charity says, “I think we have a habit of getting too involved. And Carolina is a rat race. When you’re a minority, you feel like you have to get into this leadership position because ‘if I don’t have this leadership credential on my resume and if I don’t get this summer internship, I won’t get this job offer.’” Many of us get caught up in this race and don’t have time to dedicate to taking AAAD classes or studying literature about Black identity and ways to fight racism. This, Charity says, is the most pertinent problem on our campus.
“An informed audience…that’s definitely something that I think would really help people in [knowing] how to contribute and how to make their experience better at this university,” she said. “And understanding where you come from. So I think, taking those AAAD classes, or you know, reading those books in your spare time. And you start learning and putting those puzzle pieces together.”
We all have different things we can contribute to the movement, whether we’re sharing what we learned in an AAAD class with our friends or marching through campus. But if we really want to fight against anti-Blackness in all facets, we all have to commit to using our voices and empowering ourselves through knowledge and action.
Revolution is, as defined by Dictionary.com, “a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure.”
Charity provides her own definition of revolution, saying, “You have to bring the people back to the center, and not the money. I think that’s a revolutionary concept, and its not very complicated.”
Is now the time for a revolution?
