The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 87

Housing Is An Epicenter For Change

was considered an ally shared her experience
with previous community organizing, protests,
and demonstrations. This was an important
moment of connection and common experience of suffering in the meeting that resulted
a greater understanding of intersectional identities and coalition building needed to create
substantive change. While the primary student
leaders were Black women, and Black men,
White queer allies, first-generation college
students, and students with disabilities all
became allies, students in other identity-based
groups such as gender specific organizations
or LGBTQ groups mobilized students affiliated
with those spaces.
After the MECha student spoke about
their experiences organizing for change, students decided to create the hashtag #BeingBlackAtIllinois to voice their experiences with
racism at injustice at UIUC by being in solidarity and connecting their struggle with the
#BeingBlackAtUofM/#BBUM movement at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus.
During 2013 and 2014, a wave of Black student
activism on social media and through campus
demonstrations hit the nation by storm.
Various Black Student Unions and Black students created hashtags at various institutions
to express their experiences with racism and
to call attention to the institutionalized racism
they faced on a daily basis. University of Michigan's #BBUM (Being Black at the University
of Michigan) on Twitter began in response to
a historically White fraternity's "Hood Ratchet
Thursday" Black stereotypical and racistthemed party (Byng, 2014).
Student leaders urged everyone to share
the new hashtag and social media strategy for
the next week of demonstrations. In conjunc-

tion with the social media campaign, students
decided to hold a demonstration on the Quad to
tell their stories and educate the larger campus
community about the adversity Black students
faced with racism perpetrated by non-Black
peers, professors, and the university. Similar to
the #BBUM movement, the #BeingBlackAtIllinois hashtag successfully turned into a movement for change. The following week, students
gathered in the Quad with poster boards,
markers, and duct tape provided by BNAACC.
The quad was filled with Black students standing in solidarity with their mouths duct taped,
holding posters that read, "I am NOT threefifths of my white counterparts. Don't call
me your Nigga!", "I do not speak for all Black
people," and "Ignorance is NOT an excuse
for HATE!" This action was critical because it
publicized counter-narratives that so often go
unknown by the masses.
Finally, the #BeingBlackAtIllinois leaders
created a mission statement and list of demands
and objectives for administration that included
curricular, staffing, cultural competency, outreach and retention changes. More specifically,
the student leaders demanded the hiring of
more diverse faculty and staff, the inclusion
of diversity education requirements to foster
genuine multicultural competency (a diversity
general education course requirement), improved retention and recruitment methods, the
creation of a new facility for the Black Cultural
Center, substantial and real-time consequences
for faculty who discriminate against students,
accountability for students who perpetuate
racism and hate crimes, and an increase in
the representation of African American faculty
and staff of academic departments. Demands
that were later added included revised recruit-

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3
