This Friday, students, faculty and staff will have the chance to hold an open discussion following events that have taken place in Ferguson, Missouri and on the Syracuse University campus.

The SU chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is hosting a forum at 1 p.m. on Friday in Grant Auditorium. It will give those in attendance the opportunity to speak openly about their feelings in the aftermath of the Mike Brown shooting and the video showing Hanna Strong, an SU women’s soccer player, using derogatory language.

“It’s going to be an open space, and hopefully it will become a learning experience when people hear about the experiences of others on campus,” said Danielle Reed, the event and programming chair for the NAACP.

Reed said the NAACP executive board got together last Sunday night to plan Friday’s event. It was sparked partly by a meeting of student organizations, who assembled on Saturday to talk about how to respond to the Strong video. Reed said many students at the Saturday event talked about wanting an open space to speak about how they felt about the Strong situation.

As a result, the hashtag #SpeakUpSU began spreading. Reed said the hashtag served as a way for people to see what other students’ experiences were. In addition, the hashtag has helped sustain momentum and interest in the situation as well as in Friday’s event.

The planning for the event was completed in just two days, and will be an open floor format that will feature a mediator. Reed said the mediator will ensure that the discussion doesn’t get into people attacking each other or result in hurt feelings.

“We didn’t want it to be overly structured,” she said. “We wanted it to be very free and open.”

In addition to the discussion aspect, Reed said the event will provide education for those in attendance about both the Ferguson situation and the Hanna Strong video. That includes showing a PowerPoint on the aftermath of the Mike Brown shooting, the Strong video, responses to the video from university administrators and Strong’s own apology.

“It should be informative so that someone who has no idea what happened in the last week, they can get all the info they need about what happened and can hear about how students and faculty feel about it,” she said.

In light of the events involving Brown and Strong, and the response to those incidents, Reed said Friday is perfect timing to host this type of forum.

“The time is right to talk about issues like these,” Reed said. “I can’t think of a better time than now to have this forum and to hopefully get a movement going to promote a change.”

Published on September 11, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Brett: blsamuel@syr.edu | @Brett_Samuels27