Elisa Wiseman/Camp Randall press
Kaleem Caire and Caliph Muab’El (left to right, in photo on right) address the racist costume worn at the Badgers Oct. 29 game.
African-American community leaders are calling for UW-Madison to change the way it polices student behavior and to impose a zero-tolerance policy for racism on campus.
Their demands, delivered at a Wednesday press conference at Camp Randall, were triggered by an incident at the Oct. 29 Badger football game when a man wore a prison-style jumpsuit and mask of Barack Obama, while being led around with a noose around his neck, held by another man in a Donald Trump mask.
“Today, we stand as a collective, stand as a single voice, and we are outraged as a community, a community of color,” said Minister Caliph Muab’El, co-founder and executive director of Breaking Barriers Mentoring Inc. “We are calling on the university to create a policy where there is zero tolerance for racism, or racial gestures, slurs, proxies, or anything perpetuating against communities of color, whether it by staff, whether it be by teacher, whether it be by student.”
The university responded immediately to the incident Saturday with a statement calling the costume “repugnant,” but an exercise of a right to free speech. Officials said security officers asked the individuals to remove the noose and they complied. Amid growing controversy over the university’s response, Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Athletic Director Barry Alvarez issued a second statement Tuesday, calling the incident “despicable,” and announcing a review of stadium policies.
“There’s a lot of diversity initiatives on campus and good conversations going on, but if we can’t recognize these realities for what they are – that it’s hate speech, not free speech – then we can’t move on from that conversation,” Devon Hamilton, a UW student in his sixth year, said at the news conference.
Kaleem Caire, a UW alum who sits on the Chancellor’s community advisory board and a former president of the Urban League of Greater Madison, expressed disappointment in his alma mater, and called on university leaders to hold themselves and the school to a higher standard.
“There’s a whole lot of other people out there that are leading in many ways, in their families, in their businesses, in their neighborhoods and they want to see more out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison,” he said. “They don’t want to [just] see a university that’s number one in research dollars and having a great Big Ten university sports program. We want to see a university that actually takes pride in being the number one university for diversity and inclusion in our country.”
The community leaders implored the university to review its policies and called for a support system for students of color and a unified front against racism in the community.
“We want every youth of every color, of every ethnicity, to understand that from here on in, you have a support system in this community,” said Tutankhamun “Coach” Assad, founder of the Mellowhood Foundation. “The leaders in this community… will stand and support you as you make your way to your classes. In order for the community of color who came to this country as slaves to move forward, we must allow the pathway for... education.”
Assad also had a message for the man who wore the noose costume to the football game Saturday. “We want to invite that young man… and those who encouraged him, to understand what it’s like to be somebody marginalized. We know you were traumatized,” he said. “We want to counsel you and let you understand what real, diligent, resourceful, forward-moving people do every day. And the slur – the national slur of a noose around someone’s neck – is something that none of us will accept moving forward.”
