Ms. and Mr. Africa Pageant Fliers Create Controversy

By Kristen Griffith and Brittany Wilson

The flier pictured the profile of a black woman wearing tribal accessories. It read “Africa Rising!!!” and included a date, time, location and how to purchase a ticket.

Created by the multicultural student union (MSU) and the African student association (ASA), the flier advertised the Ms. and Mr. Africa pageant, an event meant to educate the campus about African culture.

But soon after the flier was posted, senior Teledalase Ogundipe, president of MSU, noticed the event was not listed in the Wolverine Weekly.

“I sent a copy of the flier to Student Affairs and asked them to send a mass email,” Ogundipe said. “The secretary of MSU did the same. We didn’t get a reply.”

After the committee members emailed Student Affairs a second time, Dean Wanda Anderson met with Essenam Danku, president of African student association. Anderson told her to change their fliers because they were receiving complaints.

“We were told that email complaints said our show was exclusive to a specific group of people,” Ogundipe said. “In order to correct that misconception, they said we should include ‘everyone is welcome.’”

Ogundipe replaced the fliers with “Everyone is welcome” at the bottom.

But not all the previous fliers had been taken down, and the Student Government Association received more complaints about the fliers.

When Dr. Cynthia Newton, student government association adviser, was told about the complaints, she emailed ASA member Francis Quartey three days before the Nov. 21 event to fix it.

“We have had follow-up complaints that there are several places on campus where the fliers have not been amended,” Newton’s Nov. 18 email read. “Could you please address this by tomorrow morning (Thursday). If it continues to be an issue, SGA may have to explore further action.”

After a series of back-and-forth emails, President Robert Clark called a meeting of everyone involved, including Newton, Anderson, Dr. Agashi Nwobaga, who advises the ASA and MSU, and Ogundipe.

Before the meeting, Ogundipe said she and some of the committee members felt discriminated against.

Dr. Agashi Nwogbaga, adviser of both ASA and MSU, said changing the fliers was only part of the problem.

“After they [changed the flier] and already provided SGA with an updated copy that was already being shown publicly in the electronic notice board, some undisclosed people were still complaining that they sighted a stray copy of the old flier at an undisclosed location on campus, and that ASA and MSU should do something or else,” he said.

Ogundipe said the committee members thought Anderson and Newton were making them adapt to other people’s way of thinking.

“By making us put ‘everyone is welcome’ on the flier, and you’re not requesting that from other student organizations as well, in a way you’re making us admit to those people that we were being racist at first,” Ogundipe said. “You’re giving them that satisfaction that they were right and we were wrong.”

Newton said miscommunication exaggerated the concern about advertising the event.

“To the best of my knowledge this situation was settled when all of the involved parties came to together to discuss it and agreed it was settled,” she said.

Clark said it was about miscommunication and the issue was resolved.

“We had a really good session a few weeks back when we got several of the concerned parties together,” Clark said.

Newton also said the meeting ended on a good note.

“What started out as a bad day turned into a positive outcome with hugs and apologies all around,” she said.

Ogundipe said during the meeting that the group thought about making every organization say, “Everyone is welcome,” on all event fliers.

“Are we really doing any good by doing that?” she said.

Ogundipe said she was happy with the meeting, but was still unhappy about the situation.

“It’s sad when people act that way when we’re trying to do something good for our continent,” she said.

Of the 60 students who attended the pageant, about 10 were white.

Ogundipe said that made her happy.

“I imagined that it was going to be a mixture of white, black or everyone showing up,” she said. “From the nature of the issue, having at least one, two, or three show up put a smile on my face.”