The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 VOLUME 144, NO. 17
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2023
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VICTORY!
CAPTION CONTEST
Track and Field wins indoor conference championship. (Sports, pg 7)
Enter this week’s caption contest! (Forum, pg 6)
FASHION SHOW
African Students Association event photo essay. (Scene, pg 4)
Civil rights activist Michelle Alexander Green Action WashU rally discusses structural racism demands
University divestment from fossil fuels LILY TAYLOR ZACH TRABITZ JAIDA TAVERAS JUNIOR NEWS EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTING WRITER
ALAN ZHOU | STUDENT LIFE Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow,” spoke about criminal justice, structural racism, and policing at a Danforth Center talk.
AVI HOLZMAN JIMMY HU SENIOR NEWS EDITOR STAFF WRITER Michelle Alexander, author, lawyer, and prominent civil rights scholar, spoke to Washington University and St. Louis community members about racial segregation, mass incarceration, and policing during a conversation sponsored by the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, Feb. 28. Alexander rose to national fame after the publication of her book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” which was published in 2010 and has since spent over 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The book describes how the War on Drugs and “Get Tough” movement of the 1990s led to the creation of a post-Jim Crow racial caste system in America. Alexander currently teaches at the Union Theological Seminary where she is also pursuing a Masters in Divinity and Interreligious Studies. She said that she was first extensively exposed to the trauma that mass incarceration can inflict upon
people, and the system of legalized segregation that impacts African American communities, when she served as the head of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California in the 1990s. Alexander’s visit attracted the largest crowd in the Center’s history, filling up the entirety of Graham Chapel with hundreds in attendance and more people watching via Zoom. Alexander received applause throughout her speech, with a standing ovation when she concluded her remarks. To begin the discussion, Fannie Bialek, Assistant Professor of Religion and Politics, asked Alexander about how her book has impacted American society today. Alexander described how the “colorblindness” of American society in the years during and following the presidency of Barack Obama allowed for the issues addressed in her book to flourish. “It was in this context that the politics of white supremacy and a backlash against the civil rights movement birthed the system of mass incarceration that met almost no resistance from the civil rights community,” she said. Alexander recalled how her own views on race changed over
time, and she recognized her own complicity in a system that was failing to accomplish its goals. “It lit a fire within me to try to help other people [who] had the same political awakening that I did,” Alexander said. “In that sense, I had something of an evangelical fervor to use this book as a tool of awakening, in the hopes that we wouldn’t remain asleep to the crisis that was occurring on our watch.” As a law student, Alexander said she thought that people could bring about the end of racism in society, but decades later she realized that might not be possible. “Pretty humbled by my naiveté and optimism, I realized that my motivation cannot be simply to win in the short term, or even in my lifetime,” Alexander said. “I don’t know whether it is possible to end racism in America. I don’t know, but my motivation has to come from somewhere else.” Alexander also spoke about her personal move to spirituality and how that has reshaped her view of her past work. “That is what this work is all about,” Alexander said. “My motivation really needed to come from a place of deep commitment to
honor the dignity and value of each and every one of us no matter who we are, where we come from, and what we may have done — that has to be our motivation,” “The New Jim Crow” heavily focused on mass incarceration, a subject that she also discussed during the event. “[Mass incarceration] isn’t just some policy problem to be solved,” Alexander said. “It’s a symptom of our failure and our refusal as a nation to face our racial history and to overcome the politics of white supremacy, which have continued to birth to these caste systems again and again.” Alexander’s book argues that the mass incarceration of African Americans is akin to a modern iteration of Jim Crow laws. Alexander mentioned that there are no national grassroots membership organizations focused on ending mass incarceration in America and warned the audience of the underlying danger of advocating for the use of police body cameras and monitoring systems in households. “It’s very dangerous for us to
SEE ALEXANDER, PAGE 2
SU Senate Town Hall event discusses safety plans in the wake of Michigan State University shooting AVI HOLZMAN TAI OWEN
SENIOR NEWS EDITOR CONTRIBUTING WRITER Student Union (SU) Senate held a town hall, Feb. 27, about campus safety and mental health following the shooting at Michigan State University. Administrative members of the Washington University Police Department (WUPD), the Emergency Management team, and Student Affairs discussed policing and minority inclusivity on campus. Attendees asked the panelists about the University’s plans should a school shooting take place on
campus, including specifics on WUPD officer training and the University’s emergency response systems. SU Senators asked questions first before giving the roughly twenty students present at the public event a chance to ask questions to campus leadership which predominantly concerned students’ relationships with police and available mental health services. Chief of WUPD Angela Coonce began by acknowledging the complex relationship between police and students. “I don’t think I’m going to change anyone’s mind about WUPD,” Coonce said. “I didn’t
expect coming in here that you guys were going to walk away and be like, ‘I love the police.’ That’s not what this is about. We have to prove ourselves every day to you.” She said that it will take a long time to change the public perception of police officers on campus. “What we’re instilling in [WUPD officers] is if you’re having a bad day as a police officer, you don’t get to go out and yell at a student about something stupid or treat them poorly because you had a bad night or you had a fight with a family member,” Coonce said. “That’s not an option.” Coonce added that she has been stressing the importance of
building trust between police and students in the community through measures such as police training programs and meeting with students to have casual conversations. She said that WUPD doesn’t want students to refrain from calling them because they are afraid of the police. “We have to work harder every day because of bad law enforcement officers around the world that have done horrible things,” Coonce said. Both Coonce and Chet Hunter, Assistant Director of Emergency Management, encouraged students
SEE SAFETY, PAGE 2
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Green Action, an environmental justice and advocacy student group, held a rally calling on Washington University to divest from fossil fuels and recognize the impacts of environmental racism on March 1st. About 40 students and faculty congregated in the Danforth University Center (DUC) courtyard to listen to a series of speeches that called for transparency from the University about its investments, some of which are in fossil fuels. Green Action asked students to sign a banner that they hung in Tisch Commons. Chancellor Andrew Martin made his most recent public comments on fossil fuel divestment in March 2020. He confirmed that the University’s endowment has “limited exposure to non-renewable resources and high carbon emission sub-sectors,” which include auto/air transportation and certain industrials/capital goods. Martin explained that the University maintains its investment in fossil fuels because leaders believe that the “best contribution to the advancement of the greater social good is through the financial support of the University’s mission.” At the rally, speakers focused on the effects of fossil fuels on minority communities, reflecting Green Action’s newly adopted focus on environmental racism. First-year Juliana Morera started off the rally with a speech that detailed the consequences that fossil fuels have on minority communities. “Fracking, nuclear waste storage, and air pollution are part of a tradition of colonial genocide against Black, Indigenous, and Latine populations,” Morera said. “Here we are watching these corporations burn a planet with the knowledge that our college directly funds these industries that take human life.” Morera listed Green Action’s demand for the University. “We demand divestment from the fossil fuel industry,” Morera said. “No profiting from environmental degradation, no profiting from war.” Sophomore Alex Herzig, a member of Green Action’s executive board, echoed the sentiment that investing in fossil fuels harms communities of color. They spoke about the environmental issues that they believe are caused, in part, by funding from universities like WashU. “The majority of air pollution sources are placed purposefully in predominantly Black
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