By Dr. Annesa Cheek, President at St. Cloud Technical & Community College
Unlike my previous articles, I offer this community message as a direct narrative to the readers, and I do so with the hope that it finds you in good health and good spirits. Thankfully, my children and I are physically well. During these extraordinary times of uncertainty and unrest, I feel the need to say that again: my family is physically healthy, and for that, I am truly grateful.
For long, scientists and scholars from a host of backgrounds and disciplines have agreed that race, as we have come to understand it in America, is a “social construct,” meaning our society has supplanted the natural biological phenomenon that is observed among individuals with different skin tones (more or less melanin) and created a polarizing, dehumanizing system of racial categorization that assigns social value and status to human beings based on the color of their skin. This is the lens through which one must view our historic and current realities if we ever hope to become the truest representation of a fair, just and democratic society.
As a Black woman with two Black children, I am wrestling in my own mind with the ongoing discontent in our community and around the nation resulting from the brutal treatment of Black men and women by police. Sadly, the inhumane treatment of individuals who are Black has 400 years of history in our nation. We are now simply seeing it more prominently highlighted in the public square. Similar to an iceberg, our attention has been focused on the 10% that lies above the surface (tip of the iceberg) and is easily visible to the naked eye, while ignoring the 90% of the iceberg that lies beneath the surface. This makes me wonder and worry. I imagine that many of you are also struggling to wrap your minds and hearts around what we are experiencing and witnessing. If not, then you should be. It is not only Black and Brown people who feel the physical, emotional and psychological weight of these events. I acknowledge that White people (those whom I have spoken with and likely others) are also deeply affected. The pain and trauma run deep for us all.
As part of recent remarks that I delivered during a college-wide event, I read aloud the names of Black and Brown men, women and children whose lives have been unjustly taken due to excessive use of force (fueled by systemic racism). A few weeks ago, other names were added to that list, including that of Jacob Blake. Mr. Blake, a 29 year-old Black man was shot from behind, in front of his three children, by police and is now paralyzed. The incident occurred in Kenosha, Wis. For all our sakes, I hope that sooner rather than later, we can stop adding names to this list.
I take this personal experience and concern with me everywhere I go, including to work at St. Cloud Technical & Community College, where we enroll 1,200 Black, Latina/o, or Indigenous men and women annually, which is 22 percent of our student population. As a college and a community, we must all recognize the need to acknowledge and speak out against these heinous acts of violence, not just for our Black and Brown students, but for all students and for ourselves. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” We are good people. We are a good college. We are a good community, and when one of us is suffering, all of us are suffering.
We are facing a moment in our history that is a time like no other during my existence. Steps being taken by the State of Minnesota and the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities to produce greater economic and social mobility for racially marginalized groups are critical to the health, prosperity and success of our college and our community. Since SCTCC’s founding, we have been called on to be part of the solution. The bottom line is, we always have and always will be just that—part of the solution. The training and education that we provide our students is essential to enabling full participation in our economy, our society and our democracy. To facilitate this, our values call on us to be open and welcoming, inclusive, respectful, supportive and fair. They also call on us to be purveyors of truth. Now, more than ever, we must proudly live our values and support one another. So many count on SCTCC to make the St. Cloud region a better place and, more broadly, to leave an indelible mark on humanity, and that is a charge for which we take great pride and attempt with great purpose.
More frequently these days I am asked by White individuals what they can do to increase their knowledge about systemic racism and help to make things better. My answer is this: become more conscious about system racism (what it is and what it is not) and how it wreaks havoc in our daily lives and tears at the very fabric of our community. Individuals throughout our college are reading the book
Tragic Investment: How Race Sabotages Communities and Jeopardizes America’s Future—And What We Can Do About It (by R. James Addington) and are finding it especially useful. For anyone interested in learning more, I encourage you to make the investment; read the book and share what you learn with others. Building our individual, institutional and community capacity to understand and engage in meaningful discussions about these issues is essential.
St. Cloud Technical & Community College is on a journey, and the pace is quickening. We have entered this year with a commitment to redouble our anti-racism and equity work. The College is committed to holding itself accountable and dismantling institutional racism within its walls. We are building our capacity to see and analyze the patterns of inequality that continue to produce disparate academic outcomes for racially marginalized student populations, so that we can address them together. As an institution, this work begins with the College taking responsibility for both the success and failure of our students and critically assessing our own practices. While we are only part of the solution, our part is important and lasting. We are committed to making the critical changes and providing the critical supports that will lead to institutional reforms that make our college more just, more kind, more inclusive, more equitable, more successful and unapologetically dedicated to being anti-racist—more students not just surviving but thriving.
While we are experiencing a time like no other, we will only be successful if we do this together, as a community, with advocates and allies (not just cheering from the sidelines but standing in solidarity with us) joined by a common purpose to bring about the changes we want to see for this and all future generations. I offer my hand to any member of our community – individual, business or organization – who is sincere in their effort to want to tackle this essential work. I am ready and I hope you are, too.