Week 9: Controversy and White Privilege 
Image result for make your home among strangers book burning georgia anne statesboro edition              So this week in class we were supposed to discuss the film Elian, A documentary about Elian Gonzalez and the controversy around him, but after the speech give by Crucet the Author of Make your Home Among Strangers (the talk can be found here) our class time was taken up discussing the controversy around the speech and book burning after the fact. In class we took an anonymous survey about our feelings about everything that occurred, and though the answers to the survey and in class discussion it was apparent that many people thought that Crucet was being insensitive when she made a comment about an active shooter and the comments about ignoring white women's tears, but the entire class agreed that the students were rude and even cruel with there statements and actions after the speech. I was taken back with the statements about white women tears, but I didn't even register the insensitivity of the gun violence comment til in class people pointed it out. Many white people around campus that I have talked said that her tone was harsh and and there very conscious of the fact that they were white. Maybe Crucet could just have a big personality and be passionate about the issue we were discussing and not actually meaning to come off as harsh. It can be hard to tell with out actually knowing her. I think despite her tone and a couple of harsh or intensive comments, the message of the speech needed to be said. People who are non-white around the United States have to make decisions because of others biases and have to conscious of there race in today society and there are probably many ways Georgia Southern could be working to minimize issues caused by white privilege. Maybe the one positive to come out of this is the dialogue that was started about white privilege around campus. In my classes we had healthy civil conversations and I think this is a very positive sign. When moving forward and past this it is important to remember that Crucet is more that just one speech and remember that she is a person and  that we should not to judge her too harshly. Likewise the students involved in the book burning, remember that this is just one very poor decision and not to judge them too much either.

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