A Summer of Protest

Soundra Buehler is a senior elementary education major at Simpson College looking to make a difference in children’s lives and generations.

Buehler spent her last summer in college protesting for Black Lives Matter.

Part of her efforts to make a difference comes with making a difference in her own life and how she perceives herself and others through learning about her privilege as a white woman and how it influences her life.

“I wasn’t one who thought I was privileged just because I didn’t grow up having money or getting everything I wanted. I had a hard life too. I had to work for things, and I never really thought that I was privileged,” Buehler said. “After attending these events and protests, I realized that I am privileged. I have white privilege, white privilege is real, and the only way to make a difference is to use that privilege stand up, and just talk about it.”

After gaining a solid grasp on white privilege and how it’s influenced her life, Buehler realized she could use this for good and mawke a real change in others’ lives.

“Just using my white privilege and talking about it and if I hear a racial comment I say something, and if it’s at Thanksgiving with my family and they’re saying inappropriate things or being racist then I need to say something it’s not going to stop unless I say something,” Beuhler said.

One instance of Buehler using her white privilege for good came from Simpson’s Sept. 2 protest, where she led the crowd of over 200 students in various chants.

“At the protest here at Simpson, I didn’t want to stand up there and lead chants and stuff, but I did because I was using my privilege to raise awareness and use my voice and lead those chants because that’s what I felt like I needed to do to help them,” she said.

Over the summer, Buehler attended over 10 Black Lives Matter events in her hometown, Des Moines.

“One of my first ones was for supporting Black women,” she said. “We marched all around downtown all the way to the capital, and then we sat on the big hill downtown by the capital and listened to speakers speak about things like women’s rights and a few slam poetry events. It was really fun to listen to their poetry. Just listening to people my age speak about things that they’ve experienced and witnessed. Also, just the whole marching and that feeling of community and marching through our city fighting for what we believe in.”

Buehler said she felt a sense of community while marching through the city alongside her neighbors and other community members.

“It was awesome to see everyone with their signs and megaphones and just chanting. We did march through the streets, so people were stopped for us,” Buehler said. “There were people who were there to keep us safe. We had safety people there who would block the roads, and we were directed by cars in the front and in the back. One thing I thought was really awesome that they did was we had white men on the outside to keep the people safe, and they wanted all the Black women to be in the front and in the middle just to show this is who we’re here for and these are the people who matter and why we’re fighting.”

Buehler’s mother pushed her to attend the protests over the summer, but social media was a large factor as well.

“I got started because my mom was very involved,” she said. “She had been to previous protests and then kind of was talking to the people there and then [she] encouraged me to go. Actually, a lot of people who had been running the events in Des Moines were people I went to school with and people I knew from high school. I saw on social media and showed up to any of the events I could go to.”

Buehler intends to use what she’s learned this summer to assist her in her future career as an educator and has already been using her experiences to teach future generations.

Buehler decided to focus on racial inequalities in schooling for one of her school projects this fall.

To do this, she formulated four separate surveys. One for white educators, one for educators of color, one for white students, and one for students of color. This was done to gauge different experiences that educators and students of color have from white students.

“I wanted to find a way that I could make a difference. I wanted to connect with race with school, and I thought well I’m sure that there are probably issues with racism or racial discrimination within the schools,” Buehler said. “So, I made different surveys for people to take so that I could gather data on their experiences… I wanted to see different people’s perspectives on the school as well as the way people are treated in schools. That’s what I did, and then I’m making pamphlets or brochures to give to my peers and educators that have different resources for teachers.”

So far, in her survey, Buehler has found that despite educators and students alike claiming to support students of color, nearly every response indicated a presence of racism within their schools.

“Everyone said they supported students of color, but then in the classroom, one of the questions was ‘Have you seen racial discrimination or some form of racism in the classroom’ and everyone said yes, so it was interesting to see that, yeah everyone supports them and says that they accept people of color, but everyone said that there was racism in the schools and it was an issue,” she said. “Even though everyone supports them, there was still racism. Just asking students and teachers the same questions because I did get pretty similar answers, but some of the teachers were like, no, I don’t treat them differently, whereas then the students were like yeah, I get treated differently, so it was kind of cool to see two different sides of the story because I’ve been a student my whole life but not an educator yet and in the future, I will be so ill get to see both sides as well.”

Buehler’s project also included a detailed list of books and resources that educators can include in their classrooms.

Buehler intends on teaching kindergarten or first grade, so she found books that align with the interests and development of children in these age groups, such as “A is for Activist,” a bestselling children’s alphabet book by Innosanto Nagara.

Diversifying the classroom is something that Buehler took away from her time protesting this summer.

“Even though I wanna teach kindergarten or first grade just having those conversations and starting them young and kind of just teaching it and also not hiding my beliefs,” she said. “I’m going to have posters in my classroom that say all are welcome and everyone matters here. I’m going to have Black fists in my room. I’m going to have rainbow flags because that’s what’s important to me, and I want my students to know that they all matter, and they’re all important to me.”