The University of Memphis hosted an open forum event titled Uncensored to give members of the campus community a safe space to speak about their issues and allow all student’s opinions to be heard.
The open forum was held February 12 in the UC Bluff room, and was hosted by the Empowered Men of Color (EMOC), and The Professional Assertive United Sisters of Excellence groups (PAUSE).
The Empowered Men of Color take part in the annual event to raise awareness for their members and to help their community feel heard by the university, challenging their issues and finding solutions when possible.
“People come and speak their opinions on issues affecting our community, campus, Memphis or wider,” said Omar Mohamed, vice president of the EMOC. “We get the opinions of others and see how people are feeling on certain topics.”
Omar said the focus of EMOC is to increase the amount of minority students who stay in school and graduate and to get them to feel a part of a community, reducing dropout rates.
The Uncensored event has been running for over six years and is an annual affair at the UofM, both PAUSE and EMOC provide the event for their members and the public free of charge. Anyone is able to attend regardless of gender, ethnicity and associations.
Conversation was open to anyone, and the event allowed guests to use Twitter to pitch their questions to the two moderators, James Brown and Kennedie Toney. With attendance figures reaching beyond 120, Toney said the event successfully helped to create the safe space she had hoped to achieve.
“We discuss a lot of conversations you may not typically have in public, from relationships to race relations and campus climate, you never know what to expect,” Toney said.
Toney said PAUSE is a group which aims to bring together women of different backgrounds and help them develop socially, academically and personally.
“Be there, be bold and most of all, be heard” the EMOC Twitter page implored its followers before the event.
Predominantly aimed at African American students, the theme of this year’s event was “black love.”
Uncensored tackled various issues including love life, social interactions, masculinity and sexuality. Among the questions asked at the event included whether all humans deserve empathy, whether flirting by itself could be considered cheating, and what qualities one looks for in a partner.
Debate was rife on a manner of problems facing students and the wider community. Every member got a chance to express their own issues and opinions on all topics, making everyone heard and giving everyone a voice, and the chance to feel confident.
“This is an opportunity to have other perspectives and opinions to educate and enlighten us, tonight has been important with topics like social identity, gender roles and toxic masculinity,” said Jarrell Gray, president of the EMOC.
“Tonight, we exceeded the seated maximum, so I’m very happy” Gray said.
Both groups successfully created the open space they aimed too, allowing students to feel heard and allowed them to discuss the issues they felt were most relevant to them.
