Arizona State University (ASU) activist and PhD graduate Sarra Tekola — known for the 2021 viral video in which she kicks out two white students from a campus multicultural space — earned a starring role in a new expose film from The Daily Wire.
Tekola, like other diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) experts featured in the mockumentary, sat down with disguised Daily Wire host Matt Walsh to be interviewed about her expertise in DEI and racism. And like the others, Tekola believed it was a genuine interview seeking out her expertise.
Tekola posited the problem with white individuals was that they don’t admit to being racist, and that their denial simply means an unwillingness to accept their inherent racism. She compared white people in their denial to Nazi doctors experiencing cognitive dissonance in order to handle the crimes they committed.
“A lot of it has to do with cognitive dissonance which allows white people to feel okay about what happened. There’s actually a lot of studies on Nazi doctors and how they were able to live with themselves. And it’s not that much different from white Americans and white people around the world, right? It’s this splitting of the self. And so, you have this part of you that knows that they did wrong, the shadow self, and that you have to split that and you have the other self that’s like ‘Oh I didn’t do anything wrong. Racism? Why are you blaming me for what my ancestors did, it’s not my fault.’”
One of the students who kicked out White kids from a multicultural center on ASU because their presence made her feel unsafe, charged Matt Walsh $1,500 to talk with him about how terrible White people are.
Love watching the entire grift being exposed in “Am I Racist?” 🍿 pic.twitter.com/8dsCzZUnWl
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 26, 2024
Tekola said the only way to overcome the “shadow self” is to acknowledge one’s inherent racism and “unlearn” it. She didn’t elaborate what that process entailed.
“Acknowledging the parts of you that are racist and being able to unpack and unlearn those,” said Tekola.
Tekola declared that racism is inherent to “whiteness.”
“I would say so. I would say we need to abolish whiteness,” said Tekola. “It’s always been rooted in othering the other people who don’t fit whiteness. But when we look at white culture, the only thing about white culture is about buying things and stealing things.”
Tekola agreed to do the interview for $1,500 — a much lower amount required in comparison to other self-proclaimed DEI experts and victims (Regina Jackson and Saira Rao of Race2Dinner asked for $5,000; the black mother behind the viral video of her two young daughters being overlooked by a Sesame Street character asked for $50,000; antiracist “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo asked for $15,000).
After graduating from ASU, Tekola went on to launch her own consulting firm specializing in climate change and “just transition,” philanthropy and wealth distribution, and BIPOC STEM and College Prep: Addis Alem Consulting. Tekola works with the Arizona Working Families Party, Black Mesa Resistance Camp, and Phoenix Environmental Justice.
Tekola has continued her work as co-founder and co-director with Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro, which she co-founded.
A little over a year after the incident and after Tekola graduated, ASU recognized Tekola for an award. The university added Tekola to their Alumni Hall of Fame, issuing her the Emerging Leader Award for “significant community-centered contributions,” specifically citing her “independent climate justice consulting” and provision of “solidarity support” to the Navajo Nation regarding climate change and water collection strategies.
Tekola made sure to center her gender identity in the interview for her award (she goes by “he/they” pronouns now).
“I was looking to fuse decolonization, climate justice, climate change, political ecology and liberation psychology,” said Tekola. “As a non-binary person, I was very attracted to the idea of this transdisciplinary approach because I feel like the binaries keep us in boxes.”
