ASU Activist Who Drove White Students Out of Multicultural Space Featured in Daily Wire’s DEI Expose

Sarra Tekola
Sarra Tekola

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.’”

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.”

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9 Comments

  1. Wow! She IS an expert… apparently in MANY THINGS. Thank you ASU for your enlightenment in given this trashbag an AWARD. By the way, I don’t think most of the peope “stealing things” during the many riots in the past 3.5 years were White racists… and I’m still wondering how SHE plans to “get rid of whiteness…” Maaaaybeee I don’t really want to know.

  2. Just remember only whites can be racist to these types. But they cant explain the racism displayed by the wnba towards caitlin clark who has disrupted their supposed only black players league. We all know white people cant jump or play bro ball. Well she crashed their ceiling and was harassed by the other teams players even though her own team players admitted that she improved their play and they made the playoffs this season. Even the black males active and retired sports talkers had the same attitudes towards her. So much for it being a white only issue.

  3. I was a friend of a Apache inland – who told me of his father who’s name was ‘The rays of the sun through the clouds” who taught him – don’t blame the son for the sins of his father.. just remember them so they don’t reoccur.. an interesting view.
    We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in (the power of ) the evil one..
    John 5:19
    Our Father who is in Heaven ‘ hollowed by they name they Kingdom comes that will be done
    on earth as it is in Heaven.
    That day is soon over the horizion. The Maranatha day of Christs second coming… we are sinners – yes. Does repentance remove it as part of our nature – or replace it with a new spirit – the Holy Spirit – thus making us aliens in our world. I am waiting – my salvation and sins forgiven – paid in full by Jesus. Belief is salvation – no other alternative is available… yours to decide. God Bless America.

  4. The really scary thing is that so many of the so called “educated elite” believe this horseshite. And the result is the current condition that our Republic finds itself,the type government our Founding Fathers warned us about.

  5. Wow, just wow……what a literal pile of sewage this proud LBGQRSSTT+++, BLM member and proud DEI supporter and I will also add her being a racist to boot. How these people survive in this world is beyond me…..but then someone must worship at her feet because she has a consulting company to tell others how absolutely pathetic and racist they are….

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