Black noise

Some people belong on T-shirts; other folks just wear them.\nIt's personal accounts like IU alumna Nazeeha TruAysia's that make me want to fulfill my political action potential and end up on somebody's T-shirt, like Bob Marley or Angela Davis.\nNazeeha, nee Shannon Walden, served as political action chair of the Black Student Union in 2002. Sick of seeing knights of the Ku Klux Klan depicted in a mural on the wall of Woodburn Hall 100, she and the BSU created a newsworthy stir, resulting in promises of a "stronger, more vigorous and more joyous commitment to diversity on this campus," as said by then-Chancellor Sharon Brehm.\nBrehm promised $800,000 to supplement IU's Strategic Hiring Initiative, designed to attract minority and female faculty, along with an additional $450,000 to enhance retention of minority and first-generation college students -- money that Chancellor Ken Gros Louis said is still being provided.\nAs part of the compromise, however, the Benton mural remained. \nLast Saturday, Nazeeha asked me, "So what's going on at IU?" \nIn my head, that translated to, "So what's up with the political action at IU?" There was no action to speak of -- and I'm sure Nazeeha was as disappointed with the answer as I was about giving it.\nAs a member of IU's black community, I felt like a T-shirt wearer and not the potential subject of one. \nFor almost three semesters, I've dedicated the majority of my columns to addressing issues socially or politically relevant to black folks. I've concluded that although the columns might stir up discussion, things go back to "normal," and black folks are left with the same feelings of being slighted, discriminated against or misrepresented.\nLately, I've become disenchanted with what I thought was a revolutionary task: attacking the system with my laptop.\nIf you've read any of my columns, you can recognize I'm working on the social consciousness thing, but if you're checking for my face on P1 of the IDS, it's the whole action part that I'm lacking.\nDespite my dreams of raising sand by writing, my yelling has become white noise, or in this case, "black noise." I'm just one more hip-hop kid who's talking about change but failing miserably at capturing the social/political initiative of the folks I've been sporting on my $15 tees.\nColumn aside, my political action track record gives outsiders the license to deem me what many think to be typical of the hip-hop generation: apathetic. \nBut our generation is not apathetic. \nWe are concerned about the state of our environment.\nEven though Nazeeha and the BSU helped call attention to the offensive mural, we're still not comfortable about faceless Klansmen peering down on us during American history lectures in Woodburn Hall 100. \nSure, the issue has been addressed, but we're still unsatisfied. \nUntil blacks feel the results of political action have created a more accepting and welcoming environment for them, there's still more work to be done. \nOur generation is in a peculiar position. Blatant expressions of racism, such as de jure segregation on buses, in universities and the workplace have been addressed, thanks to the efforts of those black activists of the civil rights movement.\nBut even post-civil rights, the underlying feeling that resulted from such discrimination is still yet to be eradicated.\nOur generation has inherited the responsibility of sweeping up the less obvious excesses of racism. We aren't battling for bus seats or fighting for lunch counter service anymore, but our "clean-up" task is to continue to fight against the racist attitudes that still pervade society. \nIt's not enough to just make a statement -- whether it's in a column or on a T-shirt featuring a revolutionary. Only until we take some action will we ever become revolutionaries ourselves.