Beni Kashala and Michael Jordan
"Completely white spaces." At StoryCorps, Beni Kashala chats with his friend Michael Jordan about their experiences as black students at Texas A&M.
- [Beni] I take SGA not so seriously. I take SGA just because I love politics, why? Why I did the whole SGA route because my freshman year I did all the Big Event stuff.
- [Michael] mm-hmm
- [Beni] And I remember walking into our first meeting and there's 300, there are about 300 SAG assistants so, 40 committee members, there's about 350, 360 of us. I walked into the meeting room and I was the only black person.
- [Michael] Exactly.
- [Beni] I was the only minority in a room of 350 people and Big Event Staff, for those of you who don't know, is a huge deal. A 1000 people probably be on the path for Big Event and I was the only black person and I remember, I thought, "Wow, this is weird." Weird, most because, I come from a majority/minority school, we say that, but it's the top percent minority, 40% white so, it's still heavily white. So, I'm used to being in-
- [Michael] In white spaces?
- [Beni ] Yeah, but not that heavily.
- [Michael] Right.
- [Beni] My bests friend's Indian, my other best friend's black and Italian, my other best friend is Hispanic and black.
- [Michael] Right.
- [Beni] You know what I'm saying, it's one thing to be in a white space and you have your friends with you and it's not completely a white space, - [Michael] Right. this was a complete-
- [Beni and Michael] White space.
- [Michael] Exactly.
- [Beni] It was just one of the things that you, I was like, "Wow", and I remember looking to David Jordan, who is an exec. and I was like, "How is there only one? This makes no sense", and that made them so uncomfortable. Katie Edwards, who is a assistant director the next year, that conversation made her so uncomfortable.
- [Michael] It's supposed to.
- [Beni] I was supposed to bring it up as to why, how do you guys not have more minorities? How do you guys not have more black people. Part of that was that, and no one just... they didn't apply.
- [Michael] I mean, but, you have to-
- [Beni] Then my responsibility-
- [Michael] That's still not an excuse because you have to get the information out to the minority population.
- [Beni] I think that that's a another thing that we lack is genuine communication with each other.
- [Michael] Exactly
- [Beni] I've said since I was a sophomore, one side thinks the other side should come to them, do you know what I'm saying?
- [Michael] Yeah, both sides think each side should come to them.
- [Beni] Both sides think that each side should reach out to each other and so we're all kind of like stuck in our own walls and bubbles with no one there to bridge the gap or wanting to bridge the gap.
- [Michael] It's crazy.
- [Beni] Because every time somebody wants to, someone says or does something racist.
- [Michael] Exactly.
- [Michael] I'm not coming, you coming here. I'm not going over there. I think another thing is when student leaders are talking about diversity in recent, you saw the picture with the SBP candidates?
- [Beni] That's a drive by candidate really quick.
- [Michael] Let's meet the candidates. let's talk about diversity and you look at the picture and it's six white males and one white female. How is that diversity?
- [Beni] So to that-
- [Michael] No horse in the race-
- [Beni] Okay, so to that, I will say I understand peoples qualms about that picture, which you also need to Tweet about, but it's not like the University chooses who runs for SVP, you know what I mean? Every person has to decide on their own if they want to run and that those are the candidates who are running, but then again, running for SVP is extremely difficult if you're minority. Just because, first of all it's expensive, it costs $2000.
- [Michael] See
- [Beni] So, it's expensive, but in order to reach out to 6000 people it kind of has to be expensive.
- [Michael] It has to be expensive.
- [Beni] It's the market that we live in and so, I get what y'all saying with that, but it's also like one of those things that they just happen to be all white, you know what I'm saying? Black people have to want to run, but it goes back to that I still want to feel that courage to do my-