Rev. Joseph T. Quainoo ’12 stressed the importance of diversity and inclusion on Jan. 29 in response to recent federal attempts to end programs promoting such values.
Quainoo spoke at the University of Rhode Island’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Luncheon in the Multicultural Student Services Center. The event opened with a speech from Robert Britto-Olivera, the assistant director of the MSSC, and featured a meal provided by Geegee’s Southern Cuisine.
Quainoo spoke about his work in Central Florida where he serves unhoused communities and facilitates foster family relationships. Quainoo delivered “Complex Colors,” a hybrid speech-sermon, in which he used color theory to criticize the government’s priorities.
“Certain red and blue politicians can draft bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok faster than they can rush aid to Altadena, California,” Quainoo said. “The good Rev. Dr. King courageously called for a day when his four little children would one day live in a nation where they were not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. The dream is simple, but its realization has proven complex.”
Quainoo also used the metaphor to tie Dr. King’s teachings to his own experiences.
“I want to examine the impact of Dr. King through the lens of color theory,” Quainoo said. “I am not a chromatic’s scholar, but I am both personally and professionally acquainted with the complexity of color in America.”
Quainoo double majored in communication and Africana studies at URI, and then obtained a master’s degree in theology at Anderson University. Quainoo spoke about how his time at graduate school in Indiana broadened his worldview.
“It’s an old [General Motors] town, Anderson is, and it’s mostly working class families,” Quainoo said. “One minute you’re studying the same people Dr. King was studying, and then you’re turning around and you are serving students that are in foster care. It was almost like a whiplash.”
Quainoo was exposed to new communities everywhere he went. In the question and answer portion of his visit, he reflected on the differences between living in Chicago, where he moved after graduate school, and Florida, where he now works.
“It was nothing to walk out of my brownstone there on the south side of Chicago in Bronzeville and to be greeted with cultural festivals and Black excellence dinners,” Quainoo said. “And now I live in Florida!”
Quainoo spoke to the importance of remaining dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion to better serve the varying communities in need across America.
“Our events won’t be a one-size-fits-all, and so we have to be in dialogue and in conversation with the [multicultural] centers to understand that,” Quainoo said. “Events like [the luncheon] help call to mind the need for diverse thoughts.”
Quainoo actively works to create these spaces; he is creating a school in Central Florida with the aim to open this September. Quainoo hopes to raise “revolutionaries” who not only are educated, but actionable.
According to Quainoo, community development and non-profit organizations, as well as large institutions like URI, who support his work are invaluable. When founding Sankofa, a Christian ministry group on campus, Quainoo said he was spurred on by former URI President Robert Carothers and later President David Dooley.
“Institutional support matters,” Quainoo said. “It really gave validation to a burgeoning, kind of, awakening as a young community leader.”