For the umpteenth time, a fraternity has been suspended. And for the umpteenth time, administrators are attempting to placate students by calling for more training and more discussions. This simply hasn’t worked.

Students can’t have a constructive dialogue with individuals who use language that supports white supremacy as a system of oppression. A dialogue implies both parties are on equal footing. It implies respect — something these people believe marginalized communities don’t deserve.

When white supremacists say the lives of marginalized communities have no value, we don’t hear them out. We kick them out. There can’t be room for debate on that. Room for debate implies the possibility of legitimizing their beliefs.

And when we try to contradict those beliefs, we realize people don’t learn when they’ve decided not to. You can’t convince someone who believes Earth is flat that it’s round unless they have some doubts about the flat-Earth theory in the first place. You can’t convince an anti-vaxxer to vaccinate their children unless they already doubt vaccines are dangerous.

And you can’t convince a racist person operating in a racist culture their beliefs are invalid unless they already see there’s a problem with it.

That’s why dialogue and education can’t happen when those initiating the dialogue and providing the education are the ones who are already marginalized. There’s a power disparity at the root of the issue. It’s not a lack of knowledge among the oppressors that’s the problem, but a lack of power among the oppressed.

As we try to move forward and heal, the last thing we need is more patronization from Theta Tau, Chancellor Kent Syverud, the engineering department and the rest of the university administration. Students need the power to decide how to tackle racism, misogyny, ableism and other forms of oppression themselves. We don’t want to be pushed into workgroups and silenced. We need direct power and the power to control resources.

After all, this has happened before. The administration has wrung its hands, said it was going to do something and established student committees to provide action plans. But nothing ever happens. We continue on this frustrating merry-go-round.

I don’t want any committees, and I know the last thing any of the outraged members of our community want is to be silenced in one, either. Committees are where social change goes to die, and the administration can keep them for itself.

What we should do is give control of university resources to students who can directly deal with the problems on campus. Students should be handling the funds, and not through a paternalistic elected body, but in the way our country was founded: through direct democracy.

All power to the students.

Sam Norton is a senior advertising and psychology dual major. He can be reached at sanorton@syr.edu.

Published on April 20, 2018 at 5:32 pm