Jemar Tisby Challenges Honors Students to Think About the Colors of Compromise in Racism

 

In March, Honors students had the opportunity to hear Jemar Tisby, a doctoral student, national speaker, Pass the Mic! podcast co-host, and founder of The Witness Foundation, speak at the annual Honors Spring Lecture. He is the author of The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism (2019 ) and How to Fight Racism (2021).

Tisby's presentation, intended more as a conversation than a lecture, focused on "What is the Color of Compromise?" His lecture highlighted that the color of compromise is multifaceted, including the color green to represent greed, the color white to represent the myth of racial difference and the color red to represent violence. Tisby frequently paused to ask students many reflective questions leaving listeners with complex thoughts to ponder.

Tisby focused on the concept of complicity, implicating apathy and lack of action are driving forces that compromised and enabled the "most egregious acts of racism." He concluded by asking the audience, "Fighting racism is not a 'how to' problem but a 'want to' problem... The question is not how to fight racism but will you do it?"                                                                                               

  Shelby Stoltz, Senior Education Integrated Language Arts Major