SDSU MUST HEAL BLACK STUDENTS

J. Angelo Corlett should not be a professor. He should be fired. Every year, I have heard from students how professor Corlett repeatedly uses sexually charged language and racial epithets in his class, and on all occasions he repeatedly uses the N-word in his class to invalidate Black students and to create an environment of harm and hostility. He has done this for numerous years and has never been held accountable.

I am glad to see San Diego State University has now removed him from two classes, but more must be done.

Professor Corlett entered his classroom at the end of Black history month and, according to a March 8 statement from the Associated Students of SDSU, used the N-word with a hard “r” 60 times and repeatedly used the words rape and gang rape in reference to sexual violence. When a student in the class shook her head in disbelief, his response was that he is a tenured professor and that, as the Associated Students statement reported students hearing him say, he would only be fired “if he raped or killed a student.”

A brave student attended his next class session to hear what professor Corlett had to say for himself. When professor Corlett completed calling roll for his class, he recognized that this student, who happens to be a Black male, was not enrolled in his class. He said to him, “You must be here because of the last class session,” and went on to use the N-word excessively. Professor Corlett’s class is an example of the type of harassment, discrimination and retaliation faced by Black students at San Diego State University. It is routine, part of the culture, and it needs to stop.

As a student at SDSU, I have noticed this straightforward neglect of Black students, staff and faculty, where the university has no urgency to address racism and anti-blackness. When confronted, SDSU seems to experience institutional White fragility, in which the university becomes offended, starts lacking the ability to address racism and anti-blackness, and creates a bureaucracy-like process which includes a multi-level approval process for issues

that could have been resolved with a supportive statement from administrators such as, “Black lives matter,” followed with actions and measures to protect Black students.

This pervasive racism and anti-blackness has seeped into our classrooms and impacted the ways students engage. During the week of George Floyd’s murder, we had a White student in a graduate program in the College of Education compare the murder of George Floyd to her White cop cousin being killed, arguing the two occurrences were equal. She missed the fact that her White cop family member probably received some justice, while Black students in this course witnessed a Black man get choked by police for eight minutes and 42 seconds. Shortly after, this same student made a Facebook post where she referred to protesters as “thugs” and “looters.” As students in this graduate program, we voiced our concerns to administrators and were met by a culture that validates and accepts racism but is uncomfortable with being called racist. Leadership’s response was calculated and strategic; it was White tears, allowing oppressed groups to stay oppressed.

Not firing J. Angelo Corlett and removing him from some courses thinking that heals the damage he has caused for more than 20 years echoes Malcolm X’s statement where he was asked if we were making progress in America when it came to race relations, and responded by saying, “If you stick a knife in my back 9 inches and pull it out 6 inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even begun to pull the knife out, much less try and heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.”

Firing J. Angelo Corlett would only be a tiny part of a more significant issue. If SDSU is committed to healing Black students, it should start with policy changes in every college. One example would be the College of Education’s 10 Point Plan, where Dean Barry Chung is working with Black students, staff and faculty to implement a 10 Point Plan that aims to address their needs in support of the Black community at SDSU. This plan is modeled after the University’s 10 Point Plan.

San Diego State University has been exhibiting a concerning level of institutional White fragility. SDSU needs to step up and start healing Black students and should start doing so by firing J. Angelo Corlett.