Geneseo has a very socially active student body—and that’s definitely something to be proud of. The “Geneseo Walks Out” protest in support of Concerned Students 1950, however, had serious logistical flaws that were detrimental to its potential impact.
One criticism that many students had was that the march was planned during classes. Many interested students were unable to attend because their classes had required attendance or they were taking a quiz or test. This defense was met—rather harshly—with insinuations that, if these students really cared about this important issue, then they would leave their classes.
This is simply impractical. Full-time students invest over $8,000 each year at Geneseo for tuition alone. The issue isn’t the legitimacy of the cause—it’s the true value of a student’s dollar. Students like myself who are trying to get into law school, medical school or any other type of graduate program can’t risk valuable grade point average points because of a march in the middle of a class. Perhaps students who don’t have to worry about where their tuition money comes from don't have this problem, but not all Geneseo students have this privilege.
Furthermore, the college has a time set aside for these types of demonstrations to take place in front of the entire campus: All-College Hour. All-College Hour is every Wednesday from 2:30–3:45 p.m. During this time, there are no classes and there are many events that take place for students and faculty to take advantage of. Geneseo provides this opportunity for us to demonstrate for causes that we deem important. The school is practically encouraging demonstrations, marches and protests.
Another fundamental problem with this march is that it draws attention away from potential solutions to a problem. I’m in no way, shape or form saying that racism isn’t a problem across this country and even in Geneseo itself; I’ve had interactions with racist townies and other students that make me scratch my head. But the problem at hand—at the University of Missouri, Ithaca College and elsewhere—is institutional racism.
Institutional racism is explicit or passive discrimination against a certain group—in this case, black Americans. If these students are really out to combat institutional racism, then they should bombard professors, department heads, administrators and others whom they deem guilty of allowing institutional racism to continue with emails and phone calls. An incomplete march is unproductive and misses the point of demonstration.
Finally—and most importantly—having the protest on a Monday during classes immediately following terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut and natural disasters in Japan and Mexico sends a terrible message. There is a huge public relations problem with this group. They are out to get people’s attention with the mindset of “all publicity is good publicity.” This is simply not true. If you can’t get people on your side, all of the publicity in the world cannot save you. Because of this, protests like this one are doomed from the start.
To reiterate: the problem isn’t with the cause of this demonstration—it’s with its execution. It seems that the organizers did not think things all the way through and it was detrimental to their purpose.