“White” Students for Racial Equity

“White” Students for Racial Equity is one of the newest clubs at Oxy. When they first began to form, leader Jhenette Stranne invited myself and other cultural club leaders to speak with her regarding what we would want the group to be. The group is not intended to be a white cultural club, but rather a group which gives white students a place to dialog about race, something which they may otherwise feel they have no place for, and to raise their members into “white allies” towards minority communities. While some of the club leaders of course had their doubts and concerns, most of us were actually in favor of Jhenette and her friends’ intentions for the group.

The white students’ group, as I like to call it, has had some rocky pints already and even found opposition from some students, but I do applaud what the group has done, or at least tried to do, this semester. After speaking with Jhenette at an ICAP meeting, we decided to hold a joint meeting between our two groups. To bring up questions regarding immigration and education, we had Maria Rodriguez, an intelligent speaker from the group CHIRLA come speak to us about the Dream Act. It was actually a very educational meeting since not a lot of us know a lot about the Dream Act, so we were glad to have her at what I would say turned out to be a pretty successful joint meeting.