June 29, 2020

Haas Black Business Student Association Roundtable

1 hour 1 minute

H@H: Ep 15 – On this special roundtable edition of H@H, Ray talks with 3 members of the Black Business Students Association (BBSA) - Nuhamin Woldemariam (EWMBA ’22), Olaseni Bello Jr. (FTMBA ’21), and Jarrett Wright (EWMBA ’22) - on racial discrimination, injustice, and the deeper-seated issues behind George Floyd and other tragic events targeted against black Americans. Our guests share their own personal experiences with racism, everyday challenges they face, and give advice on how we as a society can help with educating ourselves and our community.

Episode Quotes:

Olaseni Bello on the burden of double consciousness: "...it's not just how I see myself. It's how other people see me - this burden of always trying to dance politely again, to manage everybody else's comfort. You're just trying to balance, you're trying to walk this tight rope your whole life. So of course that's going to manifest itself psychologically, emotionally, physically."

Nuhamin Woldemariam on systemic racism: "There's a school to prison pipeline in this country. And the folks who are future planning for prisons, it's literally correlated to the number of black boys who are wrongly sent to detention and reading scores from the third grade!”

(Nuhamin) on being one of the few black people in the classroom: “I had this moment of relief when I had certain classmates to speak up, raise their hand first and say what they needed to say, I shouldn't have to be the person to speak for an entire experience because it's an individual experience."

Jarrett Wright on police actions: “People do things based on their consequences. If I'm a police officer and I kill someone in the line of duty, rightly or wrongly, there are far fewer consequences…and because of those lack of consequences, those things create issues.”

Educational Links: