Jesse Grant reflects on the Racial Justice Imperative

As a person who identifies as African American cis-gendered gay male, racial justice has been a call for me for quite some time. To be honest, it was one of the reasons I chose student affairs as career. Where was it that someone like me who showed up as I did could do work to support my community. I have been a student affairs administrator for over twenty-five years at a number of institutions. The one thing that has been consistent in all that time is this initiative is long overdue.

I know many of us like to talk about it and “do our work” to coin an Iyanla Vanzant phrase, but the question I is when are we going to stop talking and do something as a collective? When I came to ACPA in 1992, one of the things were discussing this very issue. The Rodney King verdict was just articulated and we were wondering how this going to impact African American students on our campuses.  Therefore, the work began. As student activities professional back then, I diligently found ways to education my campus on issues racial injustice. The question I had was always how could we as people committed to the growth and development of young people change this condition.

Now, after a few functional area switches and sitting as a chief student affairs officer, we are having the same conversation. As campus activism has intensified in some ways, it is calling to focus on the social construct of race and how do we work on our campuses to facilitate “real” dialogues about the systematic institutionalized racism about what can done on our campus and the community as large. As it says in Hamilton, knowing I am musical theater buff, we get to be in the room “where it happened”.

So what does the racial justice imperative me? I feel like asking, where y’all been? I know that you have been there all along. Many of us (people of color) have faced injustice in our lives and careers and it presents a real opportunity for us to discuss the issues and call a thing a thing and develop clear and thought strategies to addressing this concern. As I read the comments from the Imaging Sessions, I found myself saying, OK that’s nice, now what?

Here’s the T? The T or truth is this is not new. This has been happening for quite some time. Many of us have sat back, aided, and abetted the foolishness. The what now is for us to look at racial justice and be honest about what that means for you. The things that have been happening on our campuses and our role in them. Get clear where you are and ask for help if you need it. Dialogue… Let’s have a real conversation this time!