The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs is offering a place and time for students or whomever else wishes to participate in an open dialogue about the social issues surrounding recent tragedies.
The flier OMSA tweeted shows the hashtag "#BlackLivesMatter," which originally began trending four years ago following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting and killing of black, unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Since those 2012 events, the social media hashtag evolved into a social justice movement as unarmed African-Americans were killed by police officers across the U.S. Questions of racial profiling and police brutality dominated public conversation.
Such events prompted protests and activism to make law enforcement and the public aware of profiling, brutality and the validity of black citizens' rights to their lives.
Tuesday morning, black 37-year-old Alton Sterling was confronted by two police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A grainy cell phone video emerged on the internet and on television by the next day showing the officers holding Sterling to the ground in a struggle and shooting him.
Another black man, Philando Castile, was shot by a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, during a traffic stop on Wednesday. The shooting was live streamed by Castile's girlfriend who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him.
In the aftermath of such occurrences, OMSA will open Russell House Rm. 303 at 1 p.m. Friday to "host a space for conversation, healing, and activism."