I am currently a Sophomore at the State University of New York, College at Oneonta and I just have a few questions for the Oneonta Community: Why aren’t we talking about the Brothers of the Blacklist? Why is it that very few students and faculty even know what this is? Why has our own administration tried so hard to sweep this under the rug? Why aren’t we showing this documentary to our incoming Freshmen and Transfers?

For those of you who do not know what the Brothers of the Black List is, I will shed some light on it. This is actually a documentary that was created by a SUNY Oneonta graduate named Sean Gallagher, about a real life incident that happened on the Oneonta State campus. To learn more about it, I suggest you click the link the documentary's website here but the summary of this incident was that an old woman in the town of Oneonta, in the year 1992, had been assaulted and fell victim to an attempted rape. When police asked her to describe the perpetrator she said she couldn’t see anything because it was dark but she saw the arm of the person and came to the conclusion that they were black and a male. So the Oneonta Police Department took this information and created a profile. They basically went up to the Oneonta State Campus administration and asked for a list of all the names of Black male students on campus and the administration gave them the list! That is where we get the term “Blacklist.”

So this list was given out to the Oneonta police and they tracked down all the Black male students on campus. They asked each Black man on campus to see their hands because it was determined by the evidence at the old woman’s house that the perpetrator should have scratches on their hands. The police were essentially looking for a young Black Male. They had said that they had a police dog sniff out the perpetrator’s trail and it lead them right to the Oneonta campus, which is a lie. The dog was lead to another road in town. But what’s so crazy about all of this is that the old woman never said in her testimony that the perpetrator was a “young” Black man. She just said that they were a Black man. The Oneonta police had basically taken this incident and made it an opportunity to go after the African American community in Oneonta. They saw this as a chance to harass Black people and make them want to leave and if you actually watch the documentary, the story is told with much more detail but the point I am trying to make here is why don’t SUNY Oneonta students know about this? Why has it been covered up for all these years?

I have fallen victim to this as well. When I was applying for different colleges and decided to come to SUNY Oneonta, I had never heard about the Brothers of the Black List. It wasn’t something that was talked about but as I began my sophomore year, it was brought up in my African Latino Studies classes that I am taking this semester. Keep in mind that I am a Communications major. If I had not decided to branch out of my department and dip my toes into something other than my major, I probably would have continued my college career not knowing the history that took place on the very same campus that I set foot on every single day and I find that to be very problematic. We should never forget our past, especially with a topic like this. Racial inequality and police brutality is very strong in terms of recent events and we should not turn a blind eye on our history. It is our job to look at our past history and learn from our mistakes but our own administration is so set on making it disappear by saying things like, “We should move on,” “ What happened in the past is the past,” and I honestly don’t agree with that.

Now I know this article is pretty long so I’m going to leave you guys with this. If you are a SUNY Oneonta Student or are interested in coming to this school, I encourage you to do your research. I encourage you to watch this amazing documentary and I encourage you to raise more awareness on the Brothers of the Blacklist. We, as a student body have the power to make a difference and learn from our past. We shouldn’t let our administration silence our voices because we have to power to make a change. Use your voice to encourage our faculty to show this film to incoming Freshmen and transfers who come into our school. Get more people talking about this. Because if we continue our daily lives like we normally do we only forget about what this incident was meant to teach us, which was to treat everyone equally, no matter their racial background. We are all meant to have the same civil liberties but sadly, we as a nation are not there yet so never stop fighting for change.