A House Divided: Brothas Stand Up, Sistas Speak Out:
Black Issues Conference 2006
By Janeen Morgan
Obsidian Copy Chief/ Writer
Poverty, Black-on-Black Crime, and HIV in our community. These are just a few topics that come to mind when talking about the black issues we as a community face. Starting in late October last year, advisor in Center for Multicultural Academics and Initiatives (CMAI), James Jackson sends an e-mail over the minority listproc as he invites the opportunity for students to plan annual Black Issues Conference (BIC) for the seventh time. After at least a long three and a half months, the longing anticipated Black Issues Conference took place on February 26, 2006. Overall, the conference was great, but all the time, energy, and When asked how the conference went, one of the advisors James T. Jackson, of the CMAI office over the Black Issues Conference for the past six years said this: “Overall, I think the conference went great, like every year for the past six years, people enjoyed the workshops, problem though is that students don’t support with their attendance. It’s like a great movie comes out but not enough people go see it. If you don’t support good programming, people stop making those programs/ great things.” Frustrated with how the attendance was there, he states this: as black people, we get what we deserve, based on what we support. Since I was on the committee and we decided to bring Cousin Jeff Johnson of BET’s Jeff Johnson Chronicles, Jackson stated his opinion on how well Mr. Johnson did, he says:“ He did a phenomenal job, out of the seven years, he’s in the top two best keynote (speakers) we have had. He just returned back from spending 25 days in Africa, usually, he makes 10,000/15,000 dollars and we paid him half (7, 000) He did a 15, 000 job. Students’ priority are so MIXED up that they’d rather go to Detroit and stand outside a Super Bowl party (something that isn’t even educational) than stay in Bowling Green and feed their minds!
Wondering how he though the committee did, I asked and got this response: “The committee did an excellent. In the past years, they have to be in the top 2 or 3, in terms of getting things done. They faced lots of challenges, facing whether or not to push the conference back or not. For the past six years, Mr. Jackson’s office (CMAI) has been the constant sponsor of the Black Issues Conference, and now mentioned by Mr. Jackson himself, his office may not even sponsor this conference, I asked him who would he recommend sponsor the conference, if there is to be one. This was his response: “The Black Issues Conference by a consortium of black student leaders from different organizations who come together and say ‘We want to do this!’ These organizations should be BSU, NAACP, Obsidian, Gospel Choir, each individual fraternity and sorority that supposed to be founded on the same principles as the conference. As a matter of fact, this whole issue should have been dedicated to the Black Issues Conference. We need to see some kind of initiative they students take to plan the conference. The same motivation and initiative it takes for students to plan spring break trips, needs to be the same initiative to plan the conference. More students went to the BSU fashion show, Jabberwok, parties (with INFLATION) Dinner Theater, Kwanzaa, than BIC. In my opinion, the common factor of why people attended these events over others is that people didn’t need to think and not responsible for ding things after the fact. BIC was FREE, so as soon as you ask people to think about the issues that their community faces, they have a billion plus one excuses! The SHAME on all of this is that students are here for education, not to see people model clothes and watch the Greeks step, none of that makes you a wise person!”
When we started the conference, our whole purpose was to with the FUBU theme (For Us By Us) and if black students don’t care, then the money will go somewhere else. Where else is it the money going? If students aren’t gonna take advantage of all the money than goes into this conference, then the money will go to something else! There’s been a drastic change in attendance. All we want is for students to tell us what we want. It’s for all these reasons that my office isn’t planning on sponsoring the Black Issues Conference 2007 UNLESS students get together, conduct initial planning and come to my office with proposal for the conference, 2007. There could have been a feature on the keynote, stories about each workshop, an interview of a committee member, the Greeks.” So, when I asked him what he taught about the committee, he says this: The committee did an excellent. In the past years, they have to be in the top 2 or 3, in terms of getting things done. They faced lots of challenges, facing whether or not to push the conference back or not.