Revenue Puppets:My UA Experience...

            The thought of privatizing academic institutions makes me irascible. After our discussion on Wednesday I walked away feeling hopeless, bamboozled, and unsure of what my future may hold as an aspiring academic. Academic freedom is what attracted me to academia in the first place, so you can imagine how troubling it is to know that it is actually a façade. When examining the way neo-liberalism has affected my experience at the University of Alabama, I can only hope that one day the administration will understand how their lack of empathy towards minorities really affects us. Based on her negligence I can assume two things about our president: 1. She doesn’t care about Black people unless they play on the football team, and 2. She doesn’t care about women. Unfortunately I just so happen to be a Black woman, so I feel like I have no protection. There are times when I am literally afraid to be on campus, because I am fearful that if I experienced some sort of assault or discrimination, my voice will be silenced. Why? Well, the past is a pretty good indicator of the future, and her past behavior dictates that my story like many others will be swept under the rug. The segregated Greek system is nothing new, but because the young lady who was rejected was one of the trustees granddaughters, Judy Bonner confronted the situation. But even the way she did it was problematic. She never actually addressed the racial climate on campus in her emails, never explicitly used the words “race” or “racism”, and she never actually held the Greek council accountable. For her it was more important to take a picture with Bill Cosby (insert sarcasm), then to actually address the reasons why we were dealing with this situation in the first place. I am sure the reason for this is because she did not want to upset  UA donors who would have probably revoked their funding had she taken a more aggressive approach. But as always, I guess the Black students should just understand. How dare she lose potential donors at the expense of racial equality on campus? How dare she actually take the time address the complaints of Black students? How dare we not understand that because our presence does not generate as much revenue as it would if we played on the football team that we do not matter? It gets a little overwhelming sometimes thinking about it. I guess these are the same reasons why she never addresses the proliferation of sexual assault cases either. Because she knows that it will taint the pristine image of UA that she and the donors of our campus want to perpetuate. What she fails to realize is that she’s constructing a false reality at the expense of her students and that has to stop.