nubian message
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WEDNESDAY | MARCH 2 | 2011
March 2, 2011
NUBIAN MESSAGE ISSUE 17
SENTINEL OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY AT NC STATE SINCE 1992
WWW.NCSU.EDU/NUBIAN
“It’s A Hard Knock Life”
The Judicial System and the Black Community Jasmine Harris | Managing Editor
actually more black men in college, despite that these statistics were fairly close, The ladies of the Kappa discussion was generated Omicron chapter of Alpha on why most people beKappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. lieved there were more and the NCSU Collegiate black men in jail. 100 Chapter of 100 Black Students brought up Men of America, Inc. held several reasons, such as a very informative prothe media portraying the gram about the effects the negative statistics about United States judicial sysblack people and the racial tem has on the black combias of blacks committing munity, Tuesday February more crimes than other 22, 2011 in SAS Hall. The races. Quite a few people purpose of the program mentioned that they could was to invoke discussion relate based on personal and to inform students of experience, as many of factors that place many their relatives were in jail African American men and or prison compared to the women into jails and prisamount of their relatives ons. in college. There are also The program began Members of the Kappa Omicron Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. discuss impacts of the judicial sysbad influences that may with students watching tem on the African American community. lead young black men into two documentaries on the prison system such black males and the prison as exposure to gangs and system. According to the violence, the absence of a documentaries, 1 in every 100 Americans are in jail or prison, however 1 in every father figure in the black family, drugs and the lack of opportunity in their en15 African Americans are in jail or prison. The documentaries provided insight on vironments. Since many African Americans face economic situations, many say the War On Drugs in America by attorney and author of The New Jim Crow, Mi- that college takes African American men and women out of that environment. It chelle Alexander. The documentaries raised questions and great discussions on keeps young men and women busy and influences them to make the right deciwhether there were more black men in jail than in college. The majority of the sions, so they would not have to return to that environment. Senior in CommuAfrican Americans in the documentaries assumed that more black men were in nications Media and president of the Collegiate 100, Keyuntae Ward, mentioned jail, and so did the attendees of the program. After revealing that there were that some people do make the right decisions, but despite those decisions they Judicial see Pg. 7
A Teachable Moment
Knowledge is like a garden; if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested- African Proverb Shanequa Winstead | Editorial November 30, 1992 was the date in which the first issue of the Nubian Message was printed. Despite the fact that this newspaper is almost 20 years old, our Student Media counterparts have yet to grasp the simple yet necessary purpose of this newspaper. February 10, 2011 the Technician published a derogatory cartoon in its newspaper taking a shot at both the Nubian Message and the African American community that it serves. This cartoon displayed both the Nubian Message and the Technician; the Technician newspaper with the image of the Nubian Message serving as its shadow with the words “Nubian Message Shadow of the Past” on its cover. Underneath the cartoon were the words “Why have two half newspapers when you can have one whole newspaper”, this being a clear contradiction to what was portrayed by the image.
My initial response to the picture published in the Technician was pure anger and the feeling that this image was basically a slap in the face to every mem-
“...I have, along with guidance from others, decided to make this a teachable moment for certain members of the Technician staff, certain advisors to Student Media, and other members of the campus community...”
ber of the African American community on this campus. However, I had to remind myself that although NC State is a research one institution, not everyone on campus is capable of such. Thus I have, along with guidance from others, decided to make this a teachable moment for certain members of the Technician
staff, certain advisors to Student Media, and other members of the campus community who have yet to see the significance of our publication. With very minimal research effort I came across the following information. In 1992, the birth year of the Nubian Message, African American students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill began protesting and lobbying for their University’s Administration to build a free-standing cultural center with the purpose of expanding the knowledge of the African American culture. While NC State had recently completed its African American cultural center, it was not fully staffed, had no operating budget at the time, and the library only contained about 10 books. September 23, 1992 a member of the Technician staff wrote in a column that the African American student activists at UNC were racist, compared them to the Ku Klux Klan, and bashed their rally. The next Teachable See Pg. 7