A diverse group of community members attended the first of four Race, Racism, and Civil Rights classes at Cookeville’s First Presbyterian Church Tuesday evening.
Tennessee Tech Senior Executive for Access, Belonging, and Community Outreach Dr. Robert Owens taught the class. He said the course unpacks race and racism from both an individual and systemic perspective. Owens said systemic racism is difficult to define.
“Sometimes, if we can’t see something or don’t understand something. we don’t want to deal with it,” Owens said. “We go the other direction, or we say that it doesn’t exist. And so that’s one of the reasons why I appreciate being able to navigate through that topic, really define it, and sort of talk about what it looks like.”
Owens said the class also covers civil rights between the time of slavery to the present day. Owens said the civil rights conversation is focused more on race, rather than gender or socioeconomic issues.
Owens said there is a negative connotation around diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, thanks to mainstream and social media. Owens said some people may not want to hear anything else about the issue.
“I think there are also people that are interested to know if there is a different understanding,” Owens said. “Is there a truth about that broader topic of inclusion, that I think racism would be a part of. Is the truth not being spoken in mainstream media and what we see all of the time? And I think that’s where some of this interest comes from. People are interested in if there’s more to diversity, equity, and racism than what we’re seeing or what is said.”
Owens said the class is built for discourse, and Tuesday’s session provided rich conversation.
“If somebody came in with an agenda where they were on the offensive, you didn’t sense that,” Owens said. “I didn’t feel that. It was just sharing, and some dialogue, back and forth in a safe space, around a topic that is very sensitive right now.”
Owens said discussions like the ones had in Tuesday’s class are a beneficial, and people’s willingness to attend and listen speaks to the quality of the community.
This is the second iteration of the Race, Racism, and Civil Rights classes. Owens said he first taught the course in the winter of 2024 at First United Methodist Church.
There are three one-hour sessions left in the course, which is held Tuesdays at 4 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Cookeville.
