University of Chicago student organization hosts ‘BIPOC-only’ race on campus discussion: body previously called to debunk university police
- A student group at UChicago is hosting an event just for BIPOC
- The meeting will be a space for “honest discussion” of racial issues on campus
- The group previously called for the UCPD to be defunded after it shot dead a black student
- They formed in 2017 after a series of racist incidents on campus, including flyers about Hitler and Nazism and a “racially insensitive” Cinco de Mayo liaison party
A University of Chicago student organization promoting “racial justice” is hosting a race-related meetup for Black, Indigenous, and Colored only.
The event, described as “BIPOC ONLY space for candid discussion of navigating races in UChicago between students new and old,” will be held on October 15 by group UChicago United.
The event is titled “Race @ Chicago” as part of the “Disorientation” campaign. “BIPOC” stands for Black, Indigenous and People of Color.
The Dis-Orientation 2022 page invites students To for events to learn more about the “real” UChicago.
Sign-up pages encourage new students to “learn something UChicago doesn’t want you to know…and build a community with current students working for justice on and off campus!”
The group had previously called for the University of Chicago Police Department to be defunded following the shooting of black student Charles Soji Thomas, who was experiencing a mental health crisis.
“Given the violence Charles was subjected to as part of a larger, systemic problem, our goal has always been to abolish our campus police force,” they write on their website.
A University of Chicago advocacy group dedicated to racial justice is hosting an event to honestly discuss racial issues on campus, open only to Black, Indigenous, and Colored people
The discussion is part of the UChicago United group’s Fall Disorientation 2022 event series
In December 2016, flyers appeared on campus that appeared to glorify Hitler and Nazism, prompting concerned members of UChicago to form UChicago United
A construction-themed frat party for Cinco de Mayo was seen as racially insensitive and another provocation that motivated the founders to get involved with UChicago United
The comments below the Facebook event left little doubt that for some the event was racist in nature
Some other events planned for the fall season include a meeting on anti-militarism, a workshop on policing, gentrification and abolition, and an “activists’ open house” where students can “meet representatives of groups working for survivors, migrants, workers… and Race Fight , Environment, Disability.’
The group UChicago United was founded in May 2017 by “students of color committed to racial justice” in response to a series of racist incidents on campus, according to its website.
One of the inflammatory incidents that prompted the founders to form the group was allegations of a racially insensitive Cinco de Mayo construction-themed party by one of the fraternity’s campus chapters.
Another was the distribution of fliers on campus promoting Nazi ideology and images of Hitler and swastikas by a group called the Atom Waffen Division. Their slogan was: “No degeneration, no tolerance, Heil Sieg”.
UChicago United is pursuing a series of campaigns aimed at “structurally transforming the University of Chicago campus into a truly inclusive space that meets the needs of and empowers students of color.”
One of the advocacy groups’ demands is the creation of a department to teach critical race theory.
Her other demands include calls for the university to hire more color faculties, change its classes to be “less Eurocentric”, build cultural centers and set up an ethnic studies department.