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Response to the Noose Hanging Incident at Columbia UniversityOctober 12, 2007 To the AMCD community, Most recently, a counseling colleague at Teachers College of Columbia University, Dr. Madonna Constantine, was subjected to an act of terrorism when someone placed a noose on her office door. While some may view this as an isolated act of an extremist, a mentally impaired individual, or a disgruntled student, others have more accurately assessed this incident as one of a string of racially charged acts of aggression and intimidation against socio-politically vulnerable individuals. Teaching in content areas that challenge long-held beliefs about White privilege and supremacy, educational hegemony, bias, and discrimination against people of color and other socially marginalized individuals and communities places faculty in precarious positions, especially when they are not supported by university administrators. Despite claims of supporting diversity, the Academy often fails to enact systemic change at the policy level. The result is that many culturally diverse faculty and those of all cultural and ethnic groups who teach critical pedagogies that advance social justice and systemic change are all too often positioned outside of the academic sanctuary. Needless to say, many of us who teach multicultural, diversity, and social justice courses are afraid to teach these subjects, conduct research, and write in our topic areas. Yet, we who profess to believe in the merit of cultural integrity and the need to integrate social justice in counseling must be persistent in our acts of resistance in order to serve as a collective buffer against personal and systemic oppression. Let us not allow for a culture of silence within our counseling profession and thus, by default, give a nod to this offensive and aggressive behavior. As the multicultural association that brought out the multicultural counseling competencies in 1992 and its updates in 1996 and 2003, we must give voice against intimidating acts within our own counseling profession and within our teaching and training environments. AMCD has steadfastly been at the forefront, addressing issues of injustice since its inception; let us remain proactive in our efforts. The AMCD executive council will be discussing what concrete actions can be taken, both short-term and long-term, that can aid in: (a) decreasing the number and intensity of hate-crime incidents nationally and (b) ameliorating the effects of systemic oppression on socially marginalized individuals and communities. In the meantime, we send our strongest support and spirit of unity to Dr. Constantine and everyone else at Teachers College who was directly affected by this egregious act. I urge you to call or write your AMCD representative to ask what can you do to help. What happened to Dr. Constantine could have happened to you - or me. Act now... Sincerely, |
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