Student makes “White Women Should Date Black Men” flyers to fight racism
A student at Southern Methodist University says she could get suspended because of a flyer she posted last fall on campus that was intended to support black students.
Emily Walker, 25, is on disciplinary probation. “They handed me one of the hardest punishments you can get on SMU,” she said.
Walker doesn’t feel like she did anything wrong. In November, she made a flyer that she titled “Why White Women Should Date Black Men” and posted 150 copies of it around the campus grounds.
She wrote it in response to a different flyer that went around called “Why White Women Shouldn’t Date Black Men.” That flyer was filled with racist claims.
“I was like, ‘I’m a white woman.’ I’m going to show the author, ‘No, sorry buddy. You didn’t win,'” Walker said.
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She said she saw how the first flyer impacted black students. “It hurt the black young men on our campus.”
A week after she posted the flyer she found out she was under investigation by the university. She had thought the process would be a quick one but instead, it turned into months of anxiety. She only recently found out about her probation as punishment.
“If you do one thing wrong, you could be suspended and off this campus,” Walker said. “I’m walking on thin ice.”
Walker says the school claimed her flyers created a hostile environment on campus. While her flyer did use generalizations about white men, she says it was satire. She intended to send a supportive message to the black students and she feels that the university is sending the wrong message.
“It tells me I can’t speak out for other people,” said Walker.
