On June 2nd, 2020, after just one full day of writing, writer and activist Russell Dinkins published his article “Brown University, If You Were Actually Serious About Racial Justice You Would Not Be Cutting the Men’s Track Team” on the digital publishing site Medium. In late May, the university announced that track, along with a few other sports, would be demoted to club status to stay in compliance with Title IX.
In his article, Dinkins points out that “Brown’s track team has more Black males than their Lacrosse, Baseball, Ice Hockey and Crew teams combined.” The cutting of Brown’s track team would eliminate some key pathways for Black student-athletes. Dinkins explained that this article was “informed by my experiences” since Dinkins himself was a recruited Track athlete at Princeton University. Dinkins’ piece raised awareness about Brown’s plan to cut the track team and eventually brought change that ended with Brown reinstating the program.
Dinkins’ article is one focus of Ms. Evans’ English class The Art of Persuasion, and he visited GA virtually on March 3rd to speak about his writing and activism. Dinkins also has a personal connection to GA, since he attended school here for four years before attending boarding school. In fact, Dinkins was introduced to Ms. Evans by Ms. Burnett, his former English teacher.
Ms. Evans explained that her class is about “how you can play with rhetoric in an artistic way.” She added, “I think that you can be creative with argumentative writing, and Russell is a walking, or running, example of that.” Ms. Evans also mentioned that she polled her students on topics they were most interested in, and racism and sports were among the top interests. Dinkins work exists right at the intersection of those two topics. In his visit to GA, Dinkins explained to us that his “objective was to make sure that pathways for Black and lower-income students are maintained.”
Dinkins also spoke to students about his writing process and how the pandemic influenced his activism. He revealed that during the pandemic he was laid off and spent a lot of time at home. Although he “had been really reluctant” to initially share his writing online, the pandemic prompted Dinkins to ask himself, “Why not?”. Dinkins told us he wrote to “share my ideas and spark conversation,” and did not expect his Brown article to go viral. Once he saw that his article was gaining attention, Dinkins shifted his strategy to focus on activism, calling alumni and university employees to get involved every day and working with the University.
Ms. Evans spoke about the importance of reading and discussing pieces about racial equity saying, “We want to look at the art of the language, but we also want to respond to these pieces.” She added, “I’m really proud of my students that they weren’t afraid” to engage in difficult conversations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/sports/brown-track-and-field.html
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nTHuJ0zR5O5ZhdTn9eA0KXC8rCHLwg7fTLAqVrKHILM/edit
Thanks for reporting on events around the school and bringing attention to all the great work going on that wouldn’t otherwise be visible to the whole community. Nice work!