Freedmen and Ryland were segregationists who actively advocated for slavery and Ryland even owned slaves–why are these names proudly displayed at our university? The University, more specifically the board of trustees, has expressed their desire to keep these names displayed, while making additions to the names. First off, these so called additions to the buildings are, in my opinion, extremely tone deaf to the situation. How is it okay for Freedmen’s name to proudly sit alongside Mitchell. Mitchell was a prominent black journalist in Richmond who actively advocated against white supremacy , while Freedmen was an active advocate of segregation and eugenics–how is it okay to place these names side by side. To me, it is very offensive and unjust to place these two names side-by-side.  The case is similar to Ryland, who was also a racist and actually owned enslaved people. The decision was to keep Rylands name on the building while naming a small terrace on the building after one of the people he enslaved. This is a really bad decision, not only is the power dynamic very visible, but Ryland was the enslaver to this person–while he is glorified, and they have a little terrace named after them. It just seems very patronizing and wrong.

Ultimately, I believe these names should be replaced with people who also contributed to the University or the greater Richmond community, instead of visibly glorifying people which held and committed such immoral actions. The argument is similar to the removal of confederate monuments, removing monuments does not erase the history, but rather they should not be glorified as heroes, when they were morally bad human beings. The same argument goes for the buildings renaming, let’s replace the names with individuals who were positive, progressive advocates of the University, instead of continuing the display of the university’s racist past.

I really liked today’s podcast and the discussion on assumptions and harmful policies, such as those relating to drugs. Last semester I took a sociology class called Race and Crime where we discussed in depth how certain assumptions and biases are implicitly written into laws so that minority communities are targeted more and are more negatively impacted. Besides the war on drugs policies, discussed by Dr. Bezio, that led to a disproportionate number of incarcerated Black and Hispanic individuals, in my previous class we examined the presence of police in schools. Student resource officers (SROs) are brought into schools usually under the false assumption that they will protect the students and make the school more safe. However in reality, crime rates in these schools increase and as a result a school to prison pipeline is often formed. The SROs in school usually end up targeting minority students due to their biases, resulting in the minority students receiving unfair punishments, such as suspension or expulsion, for actions or behavior that do not deserve it. This also reaffirms biases into the minds of other students that certain minority communities are inherently bad and need to be policed more. While we assume that having SROs in schools is beneficial for safety and order, what we know is that policing becomes biased towards students from minority communities and can have detrimental effects. 

Additionally, the podcast made me think about how we make certain rules that are based on what is considered to be good or appropriate by the dominant culture in that time and place. These rules claim to be made for the good of society. The rule that Dr. Bezio stood out to me specifically, due to my own experience with this rule in school, was that women should not show their arms and legs because it is distracting to the men around them. In 7th grade, I vividly remember a school counselor meeting with all the girls in my grade during a lunch period to explain this very idea to us. That it was a bad idea to wear short shorts that exposed our legs or tank tops that exposed our arms and backs because it would distract the boys around us. Looking back on this, I think it is crazy that as early as 7th grade, 12 and 13 year olds, girls are being taught that the dominant culture puts restrictions on how they can express their bodies to make males more comfortable. The boys received no similar conversation about how they should try to not get distracted by the girls, placing the responsibility of this issue on the girls and forcing them to adjust their clothing. We need to do better as a society and not place the burden on women to significantly regulate their clothing choices or blame on women for distracting others because they are just expressing their bodies how they feel most comfortable .

I am completely torn on this subject; I do not think having buildings named after Ryland and Freedman are moral given their history of decisions but, I fully see that there are negative consequences that may be too great to change the names of these buildings.

On one side just because these men gave the school a lot of money, and in Rylands case worked to make Richmond College his version of great when he was president does not mean they deserve to be honored today. The good things they did do not outweigh the bad, and just telling people more about their history (both good and bad) will not solve the problem at hand, our school is honoring bad people. Other schools that have changed names of buildings such as Georgetown University which changed two names of dorms named after past presidents who were slave owners in 2015 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/georgetown-university-to-rename-two-buildings-that-reflect-schools-ties-to-slavery/2015/11/15/e36edd32-8bb7-11e5-acff-673ae92ddd2b_story.html) have received more good press than bad. Our school will also receive good press if we change the names, and while some donors are threatening not to stop donating if there is a change other are threatening the opposite.

But despite my belief that it would be morally sound to change the names, I don’t think we will and I see why. Most of our money comes from people who do not feel we should change the names and of course our Board of Trustees does not support it. The other day in class someone mentioned students standing up and demanding change, I think this is great in theory but in reality, would do more harm than good. I do not think our administration will change their minds considering how much time was spent on the Presidential Commission and how much information came from it. In other words, I think that if this year of research didn’t change anyone’s mind not much else will. If the students tried to use the power of the bad press as someone suggested in class, I think it would hurt more than help. If you think about it some of the decisions that our administration makes to save their butts, while we may disagree with them help us too. I am NOT saying we should ignore issues that are detrimental to our safety (such as the sexual assault case that came out and leads to a restructuring of Title IX) but the better our school looks the more our degree means. *This is also an argument I could use for changing the names, and I am not using it as a reason to keep the names but a reason to think before we act*

I’ve largely lost hope in any decisions that the University makes to improve race relations on campus. There’s not enough people here that believe change needs to happen, and even if there are, there’s not many that are willing to take the steps to fix things except for those that are actually impacted by the racism on campus and few others. I am not surprised by the University’s decision to not change the names of the building; even while I was reading the email, I had the urge to roll my eyes because anyone that understands this school could see it coming from a mile away.

As a person of color, it’s exhausting to constantly be reminded that you’re not really wanted here. Of course, I make the best of it as I can; I still enjoy most of my classes, hang out with my friends, go to events and things like that. However, in the back of my mind, and most of my black and brown peers, there is the nagging feeling that nothing we can do will change how this school operates. It’s a little upsetting; as a freshman, I was super optimistic about creating change on campus for the better. Now, after a summer full of BLM movements and repeated instances of blatant and subtle racism on campus, I’ve lost hope in Richmond when it comes to its troubling past and consistently disappointing future. I will continue to engage in conversations about the racial tension on campus and participate in activities to support my people. However, I refuse to let my mental health suffer from it; as a student and as an individual of color, it is not my responsibility to educate others on the value of my life, when it should be valued just as anyone else’s.

I find the prevalence of assumptions in all aspects of society very interesting. The formation and preservation of common assumptions is how we make laws, policies and rules for the world. We form ethical frameworks due to our world-views that often turn our potentially false assumptions into unwavering beliefs. We base these rules off of what we think is normal, but what is normal in one culture may be abnormal in another. 

One harmful assumption Dr. Bezio talks about in Podcast Episode 3 is that many people assume women should police their own bodies because men cannot. This assumption leads to the idea that women are to blame for being sexualized and should dress certain ways and act certain ways. These ideas contribute to the normalization of rape culture, sexual harassment, victim blaming, and sl*t shaming. I’ve gotten in trouble multiple times in elementary, middle and highschool for wearing clothing that was “distracting” to my male classmates. My female guidance counselor would call me down to the office when I was in violation of the dress code and either make me change or send me home. I’d argue that me being taken out of class to change or leave school altogether is way more distracting and interrupting to my education than my revealed shoulders are to the boys in my class. (Maybe if the school had reliable air conditioning and I wasn’t forced to wear tank tops on hot June days, this wouldn’t have been a problem but that’s another issue lol). Also why are we sexualizing literal elementary and middle schoolers? I think that is the universal example that all girls in this country experience in school while growing up, and it just shows how harmful these assumptions about girls and women can be. 

Another harmful assumption that I found interesting was pertaining to marijuana laws. Marijuana was made illegal as a tactic to discriminate against minorities in America. The readings about immigration and access to medications/drug restrictions are also flooded with examples of the harmful effects that assumptions make. Assumptions exist in all parts of life, similar to stereotypes and biases, which I ~assume~ is why we are discussing these topics at the same time. 

I resonated with the statement Dr. Bezio made at the end of the podcast that asks us what do we really know versus what we think we know? We often justify stereotypes, biases, and assumptions by declaring the truth in them. But in reality, we cannot state any of these assumptions as universal facts.

After listening to the podcast for this week’s blog post, I thought that the example using marijuana use was really accurate. Today, there are so many examples of how drug use is perceived across different cultures. It’s very interesting that white people are able to start businesses selling marijuana, and are praised for building that business “from the ground up.” However, it’s concerning that individuals of color are still arrested and jailed for smoking or selling marijuana on a smaller scale, like in their neighborhoods. Even white celebrities, like Seth Rogen, get to comfortably share about their weed on social media, but if it were the other way around, it would be a problem.

America has an interesting perception of drugs. In my US Borderlands class that I took second semester of freshman year, we talked about the drug trade across the US-Mexico border, and the “war on drugs.” Although many in the US tried to pin the entire thing on Mexico, the only reason that Mexican drug lords invested in travel to the States was because there was a demand for drugs. It’s not that they simply wanted to spread their influence, but those in the US are as equal to blame for what some call the “drug epidemic” as those in other countries. The US continues to spread the blame to other countries, groups, and even individuals, but much of the so-called “problems” we have with the movement of illicit drugs begins in white communities. Of course, this isn’t to say that there aren’t black and brown communities investing in the trade, but that it is necessary to recognize that it isn’t solely their fault.

The topic of the renaming of Mitchell-Freeman Hall has come up in almost all of my classes, and after listening to my peers, reading the statements from the University, and hearing what my professors have to say, I have one outstanding question: “Why are we really keeping the name ‘Freeman’ on the building?’

The answer? Probably money, but we wouldn’t know because the University of Richmond isn’t being transparent with us. President Crutcher’s explanation for Freeman’s name to remain on the building makes no sense; there is a huge difference between remembering historical figures and memorializing them. By naming a building after a racist segregationalist (who wasn’t shy about labeling himself as such) the University is memorializing him, honoring him. But the whole concept of this is shocking—it may be an overused example, but imagine if Germany had statues and buildings “remembering” Adolf Hitler? People would lose it. He was a horrible person who committed genocide… we all know who he was, it’s ingrained in our history, but there’s absolutely no good reason to celebrate or memorialize him because his actions, despite being in the past, were so atrocious it would be unfathomable to create anything that would even remotely honor him—so why is Richmond honoring and memorializing Freeman by keeping his name on the building despite his revolting actions and beliefs?

Like I said, at the end of the day the only explanation that makes sense to me would be that the University is still benefiting financially from the Freeman family and there are contractual issues with changing the building name, but if that is the truth, it just goes to show how this school prioritizes money over the wellbeing of its students. The lack of transparency with the school is concerning and really becomes apparent when issues like this arise; the student body, especially black students, deserves an honest explanation and an actual plan on how the University is planning to combat acts of racism and its problematic history.

It is crazy to think that making assumptions has been around for forever. The podcast begins by giving examples that are commonly believed as “normal.” This included one of the most common beliefs of women not being allowed to wear tank tops as women can be distracting to men if their shoulders are exposed. Black hairstyles are also crazy to view as being unprofessional due to the assumptions that black individuals are unprofessional.

After listening to the podcast, I reflected on all the rules I had in school. I attended a Catholic school up until college. I had a uniform to wear and it had to be up to the expectations set by the school board and principle. This went from having a skirt of a certain length along with the right collard short that was always tucked in to create a professional look. I never truly queestioned any of the rules presented even as I got older. When I started high school, I still had a uniform as I attended a Jesuit school. The high expectations were set since you stepped into the school with the right khakis, to the right collard shirts with the school emblem and any sweaters worn had to match as well. The most bizarre rule in my opinion were the socks. In grade school, you had to wear knee high socks that were white. Some girls would wear blue or black and I remember having the principle com into our class to reiterate the rules to a group of 2nd grade girls. I truly believe that makes no real difference as parents are the ones with the real power of having the student wear the right socks. A few other rules included not wearing nail polish, having natural color, and hair being a certain length. Guys also had a similar rules so there was not just one gender that had more rules, but both were held to a higher standard.

In college its very different having more freedom on my day to day clothing, however, I still catch myself saying I can not wear a dress without a cardigan or my shorts and skirts need to be a certain length. So although these rules are not enforced, I catch myself still thinking about them and using them as a reference.

I really liked todays podcast about making assumptions and finding the nuance and difference between what we know and what we assume- what we think as normal and what we think as bad. Bezio focused on drug usage and the myths surrounding the war on drugs, marijuana, and oppressing minority communities. The counterculture of the 1960s and the usage of LSD and marijuana motivated these “Just say No” campaigns. This time period is extremely interesting to me and I am even doing my research project on it. Everything Bezio was saying is actually relevant to my project, because it addresses the underlying problems in our society that cause multiple things to happen in different aspects of life. Bezio talked about drugs, dress codes, and religion, and my project is about serial killers.

This seems like a pretty wide range of things that are pretty different, but they are actually pretty similar. I was researching American society’s obsession with Ted Bundy and how he is in Netflix documentaries and movies that everyone is fascinated by. As i was researching I came across a really interesting article that said Ted Bundy is not famous for the heinous crimes he did, but that he is famous for being white. The author of the article said that everyone was so shocked about him being a psychopath because he seemed so “normal”, the picture perfect American. As you dig deeper into why Ted Bundy seemed so normal, it is basically because he was white and society does not typically associate whiteness with crime. This was an extremely interesting connection and assumption that I did not know would connect dress codes to serial killers.

I really enjoyed listening to this podcast about how assumptions and biases are carried out into policies that continue to impact lives long after science disproves them. In my cultural studies class freshmen year, we talked a lot about the way illegal drugs have infiltrated marginalized communities across the United States, specifically black and Hispanic communities, leading to exponentially high rates of incarceration. Although in that class, we talked more about the way drugs entered these communities (at times on the part of the government), I think it is incredibly interesting to learn about the policies that have followed. For example, Professor Bezio discussed the 1930s and 1940s target campaigns against immigration, in which the government linked marijuana to black and Hispanic populations.

These stereotypes that were written into law in the 20th century have become biases that continue to dilute American’s perceptions of drug use and drug users. This was facilitated by the government’s advice in the 1930s and 40s to drug use to “say no,” but provide no accessible services for those who experienced addiction. Thus, there are great disparities in access to adequate rehabilitation and help for those who need it, as well as taboos about addiction. Furthermore, the conversation about establishing free addiction centers has become increasingly divided despite any evidence that addiction centers are necessary and good.