{"id":55845,"date":"2019-02-04T09:07:49","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T14:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=55845"},"modified":"2019-02-04T09:07:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T14:07:50","slug":"creating-unity-through-the-black-student-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2019\/02\/04\/creating-unity-through-the-black-student-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating unity through the Black Student Union"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Black Student Union retains, recruits and unifies all students from the African and African American diaspora.<\/p><\/div>\n

Evan Sumlin saw a problem. Through four years at Wright State, she has seen students deface the Black Student Union\u2019s bulletin board, vandalize the Rock where students paint messages and write graffiti in bathrooms targeting minority groups.<\/p>\n

She hopes to fix this by promoting unity on campus.<\/p>\n

Sumlin is the president of the Black Student Union<\/a>, which retains, recruits and unifies all students from the African and African American diaspora. It also provides students with social, cultural and political awareness and consciousness for the upliftment of the African American community on Wright State\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven for something that seems small, like taking the word ‘black’ off the Black Student Union\u2019s board is a lot,\u201d Sumlin said. \u201cOur main purpose is to represent African American students and this takes away representation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trenton Miller, vice president of the Black Student Union, said the\u00a0student organization is a place where students of similar cultural backgrounds can gather and discuss politics and encourage students to be aware of what is happening in current culture.<\/p>\n

Sumlin encourages students to ask questions and keep an open mind when it comes to diversity and inclusion, especially when it pertains to a student who is not part of a minority group.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiversity and inclusion is something Wright State is really trying to impact,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to support black and brown students, especially when it comes to injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said incidents like graffiti and vandalism of the bulletin board makes him feel unwelcome and unwanted in the university.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things come up every year, it doesn\u2019t make us feel safe and makes us feel unwanted,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen things happen each year, we\u2019re going to fight for our equality and we\u2019re not going to be scared of one incident. We have each other\u2019s backs and we\u2019ll be supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said he would encourage people to work together to understand different cultures. For example, he said, he would like to see minority groups supporting other minority groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is to be understanding and learn about different cultures and understand each other\u2019s communities and problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sumlin said that support from Nycia Lattimore, assistant director of the Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center<\/a>, and Matt Boaz, chief diversity officer, have helped direct the Black Student Union to the right path to alleviate this issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mmebers of the Black Student Union encourage people to work together to understand different cultures. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":55857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[729,725,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-campus","category-home-news-sidebar","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55845"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56009,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55845\/revisions\/56009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}