Opal Tometi, co-founder of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, spoke at Cosmopolitan's Fun Fearless Life event sponsored by Maybelline this weekend, on a panel called "Change Your World," which also featured Elizabeth Gore, entrepreneur-in-residence at Dell, United Nations Foundation, and Annie Clark and Andrea Pino, founders of End Rape on Campus. Tometi spoke with Cosmo after the panel wrapped about how college kids in particular can become activists. Here are five tips.
1. Be curious. "Lean into your curiosity about any issue, and there will likely be people to share a little bit more of their knowledge and insight, and give you ideas on how to make change."
2. Do the research. "There are always groups on campus that are doing amazing things. I know when I was in college, I was a student at the University of Arizona, working on my bachelor's in history, and I got involved with a number of different groups that were connected to different social justice issues that I cared about."
3. Think local — and volunteer. "Get involved in your neighborhood. That's how I got really, really committed to the immigrant rights movement. I was living basically on the U.S.-Mexico border region, hearing and knowing that people were crossing the desert, and there were people with blisters on their feet, there were folks who were dying of dehydration or other causes. And so I knew about that injustice, and I started volunteering and getting gallons of water and making sure that they were there for folks.
4. Combine your activism with your education. "[My work on the border] ended up helping me define some of my research papers when I was a college student. And I was also doing my minor in human development, so it was basically social work, and so it helped me think through the social work-type problems and solutions in that community."
5. When you aren't sure how to balance activism and academia, remember that it's not "either/or." "I just look back at my time in college, and think about how much my community activism and my work in neighborhoods really informed my actual academic career and beyond ... It can provide a way better learning than the traditional classroom setting ... Had I not been involved in the community, I would not be doing what I do today."
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