The case for a Black Student Union

There is power in numbers. And 10 Temple students are attempting to put that principle into practice.

A group of 10 undergraduate and graduate students alike will host an informational meeting Wednesday night to encourage the future formation of a Black Student Union at Temple.

While this will not be the first time such a pitch has been made, it will be the latest attempt.

And we think it’s worth throwing your support toward.

With Black Student Unions in place at each of Philadelphia’s other Big 5 universities, the development of a BSU at Temple is long overdue.

You don’t think so?For more proof, consider the present situation that exists at Temple, and the racial divisiveness that exists on Main Campus.

A few weeks ago, Temple’s Office of Multicultural Affairs offered 50 Diamond Dollars to student organizations that participated in all four parts of the Diversity Dialogues Series.

Is a monetary incentive any way to encourage the development of a racially-united student body?

We don’t think so.’Gangsta parties,’ those fashioned around partygoers portraying blacks in a stereotypical light, do in fact exist. Therefore, a BSU here could serve as a tool for educating people about the African American cultural and historical misconceptions that exist in our society, especially those that are made prevalent by ‘gangsta parties’.

But BSUs are responsible for more than just education on being politically correct.

They provide a perspective that lends itself to the history of a people and of a culture.

The Philadelphia School District this year mandated that all of the city’s students enrolled in public high schools must complete an African American history course before graduating.

Perhaps a BSU at Temple could serve as an additional piece of the higher-education puzzle. Temple is known universally as a ‘diversity university,’ but how much does the population here reflect in the curriculum of our classes?

Intellectual Heritage, that dreaded class every undergrad here must take (twice), isn’t as vastly representative of students as it could be. IH focuses primarily on Western and European philosophies. And having a BSU in place could help dictate the variety with which influential African American texts and authors are studied.

While it would be naive to think a BSU is the ‘end all, be all’ of racial tension here, we think it’s a strong first step in the right direction.