This spring, students can expect to see a program created by students for students to tackle the issue of racism head on called TU: Uprooting Racism.

The TU: Uprooting Racism program will begin on Mar. 8 and go until the 16. This event will lead into the Undoing Racism Workshop on Mar. 17-19. The Undoing racism workshop has been going on for years, but the TU: Uprooting Racism program will be new this spring.

The program will consist of various events aimed at raising awareness of racism.

“The purpose of the program in itself is a program to educate both Tulane students and the community that Tulane is involved with about history and a historical, social context as a way to promote conversation about racism in order to begin undoing racism in itself,” Co-head Facilitator Anfernee Murray.

Events like the Tours of Truth will highlight the historical aspect of racism on campus.

“We’ll take people on a tour to different historical events that have happened on campus, some maybe more recent than others … that pertain to racism,” Chair of the Funds Allocation Committee Sydney Monix said. “… I feel like that would help open a lot of people’s eyes to some things that they may not have necessarily known that have happened on Tulane’s campus…”

These events combine various medias and activities to present their issue.

“It’s not just us throwing together kind of a syllabus of work that aren’t ours, we’re are also putting in work,” Pearl Dalla, promotion head chair for TU: Uprooting Racism, said.  “It’s like a little mosaic of all these different resources.”

The organizers came up with this program at the annual Office of Multicultural Affairs retreat in September. One of the activities was to think of a program idea that would tackle some of the various multicultural topics on Tulane’s campus, and the winning idea would receive money from Tulane to put on the program presented.

“I chose to do one for anti-racism with my collaborators we felt it was better to do it … with the atmosphere that our country is in, the atmosphere that our world is in, racism in itself has to be abolished in a way, has to be done with,” Murray said.  “And racism has been placed on a shelf for far too long, it has to be dealt with.  We can’t just continue putting it off to the side and don’t do anything else.”

The organizers of the TU: Uprooting Racism program did not expect the program to be approved so easily.

“I was thinking that Tulane would have shut this down, so it’s really giving me the idea that there is some progression, there are these small pieces in the Tulane community that are willing to talk, willing to start a discussion,” Murray said.

As this is the first year of the program being launched, organizers are anxious to see how it will come to fruition.

“I have a lot of hopes but I feel that my biggest one is one that it will be received well within the Tulane community but again with that not everyone will be happy and that goes for any program … people will always have their opinions,” Monix said.  “I just hope that even with everyone that has different opinions … that people will still interact, that they will try to make the effort to see what we have to say and see how they can apply it to their own specific life.”

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