This weekend the city is awash with red and white as the University of Wisconsin-Madison celebrates yet another homecoming.
Alumni of the state’s first university will gather to reminisce on where the university’s been, where it is, and where it’s going. While homecoming is a time to come together for the majority it is, like most things, a different experience for students and alumni of color.
Multicultural Homecoming, as is it’s called, is it own kind of celebration rooted in the same concepts of coming home.
As a Black alumna of the university whose never truly felt connected to the Badger identity, I look more forward to the return of my sorority sisters than I do any parade or football game. My views don’t represent all alumni of color, but I am certainly not alone.
2013 graduate Nina Koroma also expressed that she returns to see her old friends but that many events don’t seem to be catered to students of color.
“A lot of the times I see it as another event that encourages the white alumni,” she told me. “From the sea of white people, to the reckless drunkenness that leads to inappropriate behavior, to even most events catering to them.”
Often it is the Black and multicultural Greek letter organizations that host events geared towards students and alumni of color. In recent years there has been an increase in university-sponsored diversity events for homecoming. This year the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Educational Achievement hosted a multicultural reception in partnership with the Wisconsin Alumni Association. Both offices also partnered with the Black Cultural Center and the athletics department to host a watch party and tailgate for the football game.
Some see the increase in multicultural events as a step in the right direction, while others believe it further divides the campus. Koroma believes Homecoming has become more segregated over time. Still, for the most part, alumni of color and Black sororities and fraternities having taken on the onus of hosting numerous alumni mixers, parties and tailgates during the weekend.
Two alumni even came together to design a t-shirt this year that specifically speaks to the experiences of students of color.
Like everyone else, alumni of color have a lot to come home to from a new Black Cultural Center to a new policy banning student protest, but no matter the type of relationship they have with the university students of color will always do what they do best, create the space they need.
