It has been 123 years since George Washington Carver, the first African American student to graduate from Iowa State, earned his bachelor degree. 

Since then, students of Iowa State have experienced great strides in diversity, but they’ve also faced setbacks in form of anything from racist comments or actual threats from other students, faculty or the community as a whole. 

Iowa State is a predominately white campus – of the estimated 36,000 students, only 12 percent of students identify as people of color. Although 12 percent may seem like a small portion in the larger picture, that’s still 4,300 individual persons of color.

That’s 4,300 people that are directly affected by racism on our campus alone and many times may be treated unfairly just because of the color of their skin. Those forms of racism can be large, such as white nationalism on campus, or micro-aggressions, such as someone assuming an Asian student is good at math.

Last year, the Anti Defamation League reported 153 racist incidents on 108 campuses across 34 states. One of these incidents was from Iowa State after white heritage posters were found around campus. 

As for the 31,700 white students on campus, it’s time to step up to end racism on campus and make this a safe place for all races and ethnicities.

If you don’t understand why someone might not feel safe, try to understand that one instance of racism is not isolated. People of color face racism on our campus every day. You may not have personally lived through an experience where you were belittled because of your race, but as a human being, it should bother you that others have. 

It’s not enough for us to not say racial slurs, not make racial jokes or not discriminate against another race in any way. Being silent about racism is only allowing racism to remain an issue. 

It’s also important to educate yourself on racial issues. You can do this by simply watching or reading the news. Or, if you’re on campus, you can attend a multicultural group meeting, such as the Black Student Alliance. 

It is not the job of people of color to educate the campus about racism. It’s on all of us to take it upon ourselves to take the time to find out what we don’t know and to fix our behavior.