People who are opposed to social change have recently been claiming that the year 2015 went down in the books as "the year everyone was offended by everything." The problem with this mindset is the inherent implication that there is something wrong with people getting offended and that change is not necessary. Sorry to say it, but if you believe this, then you're just wrong.

Believe whatever you choose. As for me, 2015 went down in the books as "the year that we realized change is needed."

With the increasing media attention on Flint, Mizzou, police brutality, etc., it’s time that we have this talk. These discussions occur daily, but those that occur within colleges and universities are unique. Millennials are the future, and if we don’t want these things to happen in the future, we need to understand the structure of anti-blackness to combat it.

The problem with the current state of academia is that liberal academics firmly believe that simply having Affirmative Action and diversity quotas means that they do not have a “race problem.” Having that 15 percent minority presence is what a university will pride itself on, but that’s just not enough. A minority presence in conjunction with white structures, in the context of social change, stagnates the possibility for a change. For example, if a university were to organize a city hall-type meeting on campus to discuss protest of the recent racist threats happening on campuses nationwide, somehow/in some way, minorities will be crowded out from any sort of discussion or deliberation. That spills over into how the real world functions. In the real world, politics functions in the way which it is most utilized. The simple decision calculus of politicians is based upon the weighing of possible outcomes; if the “majority” benefits, then it’s okay to screw over the “minority.” Unfortunately, the “majority” is always inherently white and the “minority” is everyone antagonized by white civil society.

Student deliberations within universities are centered around the idea of “public deliberation." That approach to politics tends to assume that every voice is going to be heard and incorporated and not ignored, discredited, or crowded out. Let’s be honest with ourselves, when people (especially within institutions such as the academy) think of “the public” or public consciousness, they think of the majority. They do not assume the fact that inherently white structures are going to respond with institutionalized anti-blackness. What this means is that when racial minorities attempt to interact with structures that are built to privilege white people, the reaction will always already be predetermined, based on their race. Society as a whole would not be the same without anti-blackness. The United States was built upon an imperialist, white, supremacist-capitalist patriarchy that is designed to and functions to keep minorities subjugated by the white majority. The modern legal system seeks to cover this up with liberal solutions such as Affirmative Action, a way for the governing body to claim that we are “progressive." But what does that actually mean for us minorities?

“Stop whining, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and keep working.”

While we can all agree that hard work is needed to pick yourself up and climb up that social ladder, it’s an indisputable fact that minorities don’t just have to work hard, but work HARDER.

Riddle me this. Think about the poor, black kid raised in a city by a single mother, eager to learn, and ambitious as ever. Say they manage to get into a decent university, make the Dean’s List every single semester, and graduate with honors. After graduation, they apply for a job at a multi-million dollar corporation. At this same corporation, a white graduate with a lower GPA, but who has references within the company, also applies for this job. We all know how this usually ends. The white graduate whose daddy pulled some strings gets the job, and sacrifices the future of the minority, for the sake of “business as usual." Does this sound like “all men are created equal” to you? No matter what, minorities (whether or not they conform to the system) accomplishing things through the means of white academia or white institutions doesn’t change the color of their skin. This is how the structure of anti-blackness functions. It is not a matter of individuals within the system being individually racist or anti-black, but rather, it is a larger structure that is set up to crowd out minority voices. A greater solution would be some form of community building or assembly of minority groups. In order to combat anti-black structures, organizing within our communities is favorable to any white institution, because it avoids the crowding out of minorities. Commonalities among individuals within communities are critical to understanding how we must move beyond the status quo modes of resistance.

So please don’t tell minorities to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and keep working or stop whining. Until a viable solution is found, whether it be within the governing system or not, there will not be a chance for change. Saying that we are all just “whining” and being “overly sensitive” is just a part of the problem. If you yourself have not experienced these things, you will never understand, but please don’t brush over the problem. With 2015 in the books, we must make an effort to make 2016 better.