A Round-Up of Racist Incidents on Campuses
| November 27th, 2006For some reason it seems like racist incidents on college campuses have peaked during the fall semester this year. There have been several blackface incidents, and other random racist happenings. Here are a few:
1. American Indian students take on racism at Dartmouth.
2. NAACP issues statement about recent racist incidents on college campuses. I think they need to add Trinity College, Whitman, and now Dartmouth to the list of campuses mentioned in the article (Johns Hopkins, Texas A&M, Univ. Texas, Austin).
3. Maybe the NAACP also needs to talk to the college republicans at Boston University, who feel the need to have a “Caucasian scholarship.”
4. Next we have the University of Cincinnati, where racist fliers were delievered to the campus. The UC administration seems to be taking the exact opposite of Whitman. When Whitman students showed up in blackface, the administration cancelled classes, according to some UC students the administration hasn’t said much at all about these fliers.
5. Black students at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis got fed up with racism on campus and issued a list of demands, to which white students and at least a few other racial minority students declared that they wanted their tuition money back. You can read the students grievances and demands here (PDF). It is also interesting to see that a South Asian woman is leading the charge against the black students grievances.
6. Racial slurs and religious bigotry found on Pace University campuses.
7. I already put up this story about a University of Michigan student who was attacked on line for his opposition to an anti-affirmative action ballot iniative.
8. Students in a multicultural dorm at Lehigh University find a dead animal’s head on their doorstep.
9. I also posted this incident earlier. The white University of Memphis fraternity members who called their fraternity brother’s black girlfriend a racial slur.
November 27th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
If you read the linked story, you’ll see that the “Caucasian scholarship” is a joke, specifically intended to ridicule the concept of race-based scholarships. Whatever you think of that point of view, it hardly qualifies as “racist.”
This comment was written by Rex Little.Report this comment to the moderators
November 27th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
All the links are American campuses, I see. Is that because American campuses excel at racism so well, or was the search limited to the U.S.?
This comment was written by Blue.Report this comment to the moderators
November 27th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
That’s a good question Blue. I did several Google news searches, and most of what came up was in the US. That’s probably more of a reflection of the tendency of US news groups to focus only on the US, but I have been following events abroad in Russia, where several international students have been murdered or severly beaten by racist gangs.
I’m not sure that US campuses are any more or less racist than campuses in other countries. I have a feeling that European and Latin American Universities are racist in different ways. Do you have any speculation.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
November 27th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
I don’t have any special knowledge about campuses here or elsewhere, really. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a particular flavor to racism on American campuses that was somehow distinct from elsewhere.
This comment was written by Blue.Report this comment to the moderators
November 29th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Being a joke does not make this any less racist - in fact, it may be more so. As you say, they are ridiculing race-based scholarships, which is just a way of ridiculing the idea that minority races may deserve extra scholarships.
As for Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, I think it’s terrible that the Asian student group should be working against the Black student group. They should be working together to create more equality for all minority students.
This comment was written by Michele.Report this comment to the moderators
November 29th, 2006 at 8:20 am
I think it’s terrible that the Asian student group should be working against the Black student group. They should be working together to create more equality for all minority students.
No doubt, but why would they? That isn’t the cultural message being sent by campus racial thinkers.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
November 29th, 2006 at 10:47 am
It is not ipso facto racist to oppose racial preferences (although of course someone could do so for racist reasons).
This comment was written by Rex Little.Report this comment to the moderators
November 29th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Nor is it necessarily racist to oppose the arguably excessive demands of the IUPUI Black Student Initiative. Nor do I see any reason to get outraged about cowboy-and-indian-themed parties. And the Whitman incident sounds more like a product of poor judgment than of actual racism. And no one really knows what the deal with the animal head was.
IMO, throwing in spurious claims of racism weakens the case. It makes it look like there aren’t enough real ones to fill out a post.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
November 29th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
“I think it’s terrible that the Asian student group should be working against the Black student group. They should be working together to create more equality for all minority students.”
Why would an Asian student group feel that way? They are explicitly discriminated against in college admissions.
This comment was written by Sebastian Holsclaw.Report this comment to the moderators
November 30th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
“Why would an Asian student group feel that way? They are explicitly discriminated against in college admissions.”
In high school as well. My daughter’s public junior high in Manhattan sent parents an invitation to attend a recruiting event for “students of color” held by private high schools. They later sent a memo clarifying that “students of color” were limited to Black and Hispanic, not Asian.
This comment was written by Shamhat.Report this comment to the moderators
December 1st, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Why is it racist to oppose racial preference. Or rather why is it racist to have a scholarship for white kids? Why can’t white people support themselves?
This comment was written by Zakia.Report this comment to the moderators
December 1st, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Why would an Asian student group feel that way? They are explicitly discriminated against in college admissions.
This touches a debate we’ve had on another thread. I’m an alumnus of MIT who does interviewing for kids who apply there. The stats for the class of 2010 are:
• 1,474 students out of 11,373 applicants (13% admit rate)
• 52% men, 48% women
• 28% are Asian American
• 36% are Caucasian/White
• 22% are members of underrepresented minority groups (African-American, Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Native American, and other Hispanic groups)
• 1% Other
• 6% No response
• 7% are international students
What schools do you think discriminate against Asian Americans?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 1st, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Ron:
Interesting. So do they have any plans to introduce affirmative action for whites, to address their underrepresentation?
To answer your question, when there are a fixed number of spots, discriminating in favor of one group is effectively equivalent to discriminating against other groups. So any school that sets a lower bar for admissions of blacks and hispanics is discriminating against whites and Asians.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:09 pm
These conversations always crack me up because unless someoen burns a black person alive, lynch his burnt corpse and did all of that while in a pointed white hood then it is NEVER racist.
Hell Kramer calls a couple of Black folks Nigger and says how fifty years ago he coulda stuck a fork up their ass and He’s NOT racist. By no means. he just lost it.
This is always where white liberalism shows its ugly head. I’m not even going to take the time to bother explaing race based scholarships b/c if folk aren’t aware of the history of this country then, well, what I say won’t matter.
This comment was written by TJ.Report this comment to the moderators
December 2nd, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Brandon, MIT has a category of “Underrepresented Minority” which means someone whose racial heritage is a minority in the U.S. and whose proportion of the MIT student body is less than their proportion in the U.S. population. Blacks fit that. People of Asian heritage don’t; while they are a minority in the U.S.’s population, their proportion of the MIT student body is higher than that in the U.S. population as a whole. Whites don’t qualify because they fail at the first test; they are not a minority in the U.S. population.
MIT has stated that it accepts all “underrepresented minority” applications who qualify for admission. I presume that means until they are no longer “underrepresented”.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:36 am
TJ, could you please explain race based scholarships for those of us who are non-US residents? I know at least in the UK that the majority of people attend comprehensive schools (government run, fixed curriculum) and sit the same exams (even private schools generally do these unless they do a regional course such as the Welsh Baccluriate or the International one), thus giving us all the same chance at an education (though of course teacher quality and parental motivation are variables).
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators