Worcester State speaker: Symbolic progress but racism remains – Worcester Telegram

Cyrus Moulton Telegram & Gazette Staff @MoultonCyrus

WORCESTER - A black man may have been elected twice to the White House, but activist Nyle Fort told an audience at Worcester State University on Tuesday that the struggle for racial equality in America continues.

Racism, more than anything is a system of injustice, Mr. Fort told about 20 students and community members at Worcester State. We still live in a knowingly not just racial, but racist society.

Mr. Fort, 27, is a youth pastor, freelance writer and grass-roots community organizer based in Newark, New Jersey, as well as a masters of divinity candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary.He visited Worcester State Tuesday for a talk entitled "Black in America - Race, Protest and Democracy,' which he combined with a lengthy question-and-answer session.

Mr. Fort said most people think of racism as overt; involving the Ku Klux Klan and nooses. But he said racism in modern society is much more subtle and deeply rooted throughout American institutions - including in economics, healthcare, housing, academia, and a criminal justice system where 2.7 million people are imprisoned, including 1 million blacks, a disproportional rate.

And nobody - even the most racially sensitive - are immune to these institutions.

If the American empire is burning, all our clothes are burning, Mr. Fort said.

But he said students have the opportunity to bring about equality.

Mr. Fort noted that it was black students who organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters during the civil rights era. Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, were led by young activists, and the rise of African-American studies in higher education was driven by black students, he said.

There have always been particular opportunities for college students, Mr. Fort said. Use the resources of institutions for social change.

And students and community members had lots of questions about how to bring about this social change.

Asked about how to combat inherent - albeit not willful - white privilege, Mr. Fort urged students to recognize that white supremacy or racism not only is bad for blacks but for all. He noted that not all Flint, Michigan, residents are black and that not all whites who embraced the Confederacy benefited under the unjust institution of slavery.Rather, in seeking to explain why many poor whites have historically voted against their own self interests, Mr. Fort called racism a disease ... that will make people do things that are bad for them, willfully.

Asked whether he espoused integration or segregation, Mr. Fort said integration holds the state responsible for equality and provides for multi-racial solidarity and coalition building. But he also said its goal is to give people access to a problematic pie.

He also spoke fondly of attending Morehouse College, a historically black college, which exposed him to the vastness of black life. But he also said such segregated institutions were problematic for very pragmatic reasons.

Attendee Martin Marinos, an instructor of global studies at Worcester State, said he appreciated how Mr. Fort spoke both of racial identity and economic inequality.

Its an important thing to know your identity, Mr. Marinos said. But you shouldnt ignore the broader issue of economic inequality. ... You shouldnt lose sight of the bigger picture.

As for Mr. Fort, he said after the talk that he hoped students understand and wrestle with how entrenched racism is in American society, despite signs of progress.

Though we have a black face in a high place, the masses of black people are still suffering from racism, Mr. Fort said.

And he hoped he inspired students to do something about this.

Students in particular have the capacity to resist racism and to re-imagine society, Mr. Fort said. We together - not one individual, not one messiah, not one Dr. King - can come together and actually do something. Because racism is not God made, it is man-made.

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Worcester State speaker: Symbolic progress but racism remains - Worcester Telegram