This week, as part of our “On The Margins at DU” column that investigates the successes and failures of inclusive excellence at DU, The Clarion spoke with the e-board of African Students United (ASU). Simona Kidane serves as President, Robel Desta serves as Vice President, Dajah Brooks serves as Treasurer, Jackson Garske serves as Marketer, Ian Mungai serves as Secretary, Dulcinea Martinez serves as the Inter-Alliance Liaison and Kereine Malemba, Ketsia Kanda-Malemba and Abe Mengistu serve as the Freshman Liaisons.
To get involved with ASU, you can follow them on Instagram @africansatdu and attend their meetings held every Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Sturm 186. On Saturday, Feb. 15 at 2 p.m., you can also attend ASU’s Day of Diaspora, a celebration of African culture and community.
Minor edits have been made for the sake of clarity.
Isaiah: In general, do you feel like DU is inclusive of the African student community? What has been your personal experience?
Simona Kidane: No. That is a hard, solid no. I think a lot of people on campus don’t know why there is an ASU and what the point of an ASU is. There isn’t an African Studies major. All of the undergraduate classes about Africa or Africans are taught by someone who isn’t African, except for one graduate class.
Isaiah: How do you feel like the student body is inclusive or not inclusive?
ASU E-Board member: The student body is not educated enough about why we need an ASU. African and black identities are different in many ways, ways that the student body here is not educated enough to realize. Ignorance is so pervasive on this campus, it’s at the point where ignorance is starting to define it.
Dulcinea Martinez: I also think African students are unrecognized in the way DU displays art. African students need more representation on campus. They do various stuff in the SIE Complex, with African speakers, but I don’t know about most of that.
Robel Desta: Diverse communities are not really advertised. We are not given as much of a platform as other schools give their affinity organizations. I doubt a good majority of DU students would even think twice about coming to an event hosted by ASU or any other student affinity organization.
Isaiah: In what ways has DU succeeded in taking this community into consideration in the past?
Dulcinea: What are you defining as success? If we put on a program and it has a good turn-out, does that mean it is DU’s success? Is DU itself helping?
Simona: They barely help financially. They make it hard for us to get into rooms, make it hard to publicize anything and make it hard to get work orders. I cannot even get a simple permit. The only success is that we are still around, and I don’t know how much DU can take credit for that.
Isaiah: In what ways has DU failed or continue to fail in taking this community into consideration?
Simona: I am going to start with a current issue. They do not have their communications systems between different departments figured out. I am trying to get a parking permit for a food truck for the upcoming ASU event. I go to someone like facilities, and they send me to parking. I go to parking, and they send me to facilities. They are very stingy with money, and they make it hard to market.
ASU E-Board member: They rely so much on students to the point where there is a lack of support or any structure. Affinity organizations and events are all student-led, which sounds great—but when there is no institutional help or aid to be successful on our own, it can become frustrating and tiring. It dwindles the amount of, not only support for affinity groups, but affinity groups in general.
Simona: They have us come into these roles and ask us to do these things, which is great, but I do not know what I am doing. I am a second-year student. Where do I get funding? Who do I call for a permit? When I go to people who are supposed to know, they cannot even help me. When we ask to do a workshop for student leaders, they say, ‘Yeah, we will do one,’ but then don’t. Who wants to step into a role knowing they will not know what to do? The school has this mask where they are like, ‘Yes, we want to know what your concerns are; we will listen; we will help you,’ and then they sit there and nod their heads and throw the agreement and plan away as soon as they leave the room. They do not care. They are doing it for show.
Isaiah: What do you hope to see in DU’s future of inclusive excellence with the African community?
Dulcinea: Where are the steps? They keep saying ‘inclusive excellence,’ but what are they doing to make that happen? We need to see milestones. Like, maybe it is that the percent of students on campus who are POC goes up just five percent.
Simona: Maybe we have more faculty of color.
Kereine Malemba: There is also faculty that should be involved with inclusion. I have not seen a lot of faculty at events. But teachers can help with advertising. They can tell their classes that affinity organizations are having events. Otherwise, some people won’t ever know that affinity organizations or events exist.
Robel: If DU wants to commit to promoting diversity and inclusive excellence, they should figure out a way to communicate to the student body about affinity events.
ASU E-Board member: The people on campus do not know that affinity organizations exist and that they can be active in that space in a way that is supportive. It is a responsibility, on this campus as an ally, to support in a way that is productive and in a way that encourages affinity organizations to keep doing the important work that they are doing and create spaces for people that are not the majority on campus. There needs to be an understanding on campus that students do not need to be African to support ASU. I do not know how other affinity organizations feel about that, but at least ASU believes that allies are responsible to be supportive.
Isaiah: Why is it important to have organizations like ASU present on campus? What role do they serve?
Dulcinea: Education.
Simona: It is a place for people to find others that they relate with that come from similar backgrounds. There is not any other space on campus that can do that for African students.
Education, too. There has always been the stereotype of what Africa is and what it is not. It is a space for us to give back to the community and plan events. We have the first annual Day of the Diaspora, Feb. 15 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m as well as the African Marketplace with African and black businesses from Denver from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Isaiah: What activism is your affinity org currently involved in? What changes are you trying to get implemented at DU and would like to see covered?
Dulcinea: Most of what ASU has been working on is getting specific demands met. What we want is more diversity in faculty. Also, we are all activists for coming to this primarily white campus, and having to deal with racism daily.
ASU E-Board member: At DU, marginalized communities are not at a point where certain affinity groups can do activism that pertains to them. It has to be the bunching of all affinity groups to make any headway towards diversity on campus. We have to be a collective voice to get anything at all changed for our communities. When the major concerns all affinity organizations have been addressed, then ASU can start focusing on issues pertaining specifically to the African community on campus.
Kereine: When people learn that Africa is not one big country, not everybody knows each other and that it is complex, then it hopefully gets people to want to know more.
Isaiah: How can people get involved with ASU and help support the ASU community?
Simona: We meet every Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Sturm Room 186. Everyone is welcome. We are open to all allies. The first big event of the quarter is this Saturday. Please come! It is called the Day of Diaspora. It is an event of African-inspired mini-events. The first event is the African Marketplace that starts at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 15. We invited 15 African and black business owners across Colorado to come to sell clothes, hair products, art, jewelry and food. They do tarot card readings, too. It is our way of promoting all these businesses and helping our community. The first 50 people that come will get free food.
The next event that day is the African performance by the Zuzu Acrobats, a traveling performance group from Kenya. They won America’s Got Talent a few years back, they performed at the NBA Finals Halftime show and they are performing for free here in Davis Auditorium from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The last event that day is our Annual Winter Gala. It is just a big party where people come dressed up. Please come to that. It is all fun! It is all free and it is just chill. Please come, because we worked so hard.
Isaiah: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Simona: We are a fun group of people who have fun meetings. We want to see y’all there. We won’t bite.
Dulcinea: We won’t be mad if you are white at the ASU meetings!
ASU E-Board member: A thing I would like to stress is I don’t think people realize how much work an affinity group is, and what I see this amazing team doing is inspiring. It gives me hope that DU can move in the correct direction.
Through this column, we hope to shed light on the range of identities and experiences that exist on campus, create a space where their voices can be heard and highlight their contentious relationship with DU. We hope to represent them with as much journalistic integrity as possible, but we are aware that there are stories we will fail to communicate with the same voice. We aspire to do better than student organizations and institutions, including The Clarion, have done in the past at treating these topics with the thought and consideration they deserve.
If there is feedback you would like to give or issues you would like to see covered in this column, please reach out to duclarioneditorialteam@gmail.com.
