Student Group Woes

Starting a group on campus is very much like being a parent. You have these ideas about wanting to have a baby (start a group) and you look for a partner (a co-founder) who shares the same ideals. You do all the work of deciding to get pregnant, and how and where to give birth. Those are just logistics, but they matter. (You need a place and time to meet) You have values you want to instill, you know, stand up for yourself,be aware of where you come from, be cognizant of why you act the way you do. Be careful of your surroundings and those who inhabit them because wolves, too, come in sheep's clothing. You want to teach them the power of their voice,and encourage them to use it. Leadership, integrity, critical thinking. But at some point, as all parents know, you have to let them go. You lose all control over their ideas, their dreams, and their actions. You have to step back. Let them fall. And you can only hope that once they do, because they will, they will have the strength to get back up, and that they haven't made the kinds of mistakes that will make their lives much harder over the long term. So, here I am, a parent of this brown folks group, watching her children trample all over all of efforts she has made to give them a safe space to vent, to encourage, to remember who they are and where they came from - watching them learn hard lessons (and learning a few of my own) about what real leadership is, and the consequences of not stepping up to take control of your own life (and your own group). I wanted to say, you have invited a stranger to come in and tell you about yourself...but who knows you better than you know yourself except those who have been where you are standing? Is it possible to even have this conversation after I neglected to first teach you about internalized racism? How can I be disappointed that you allowed her to convince you that "race has nothing to do with it," when I did not prepare you for the possibility of such an articulate assault? Still, I give you some of the responsibility. You had the power to say "I disagree," but you didn't, and that is what bothers me most, worries me most. I'm thinking, "were you even listening when I said you have be sure of the purpose and mission of your life(the group)?" But what can I do? What can one do when their peers win the vote, when those with the least to lose, out-vote those who needed this the most? And what can I do if those who need it most don't yet realize they need it? It's like wanting poor people to vote when they don't even understand what they're voting for. All you can do is try to convince them that they need to speak up because their voices are so important, but you know that they're afraid to because they don't feel articulate enough, and, that, too, is your fault because you spent too much time teaching, talking, instead of listening as they developed the skill of speaking.