News, Colorblind Notion Aside, Colleges Grapple With Racial Tension (costs, schools, graduate)

[JD59]

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A brochure for the University of Michigan features a vision of multicultural harmony, with a group of students from different racial backgrounds sitting on a verdant lawn, smiling and conversing.

The scene at the undergraduate library one night last week was quite different, as hundreds of students and faculty members gathered for a 12-hour “speak out” to address racial tensions brought to the fore by a party that had been planned for November and then canceled amid protests. The fraternity hosting the party, whose members are mostly Asian and white, had invited “rappers, twerkers, gangsters” and others “back to da hood again.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/us...ml?ref=us&_r=1

[citylove101]

Why should it be any surprise that black students are angry when they see white and Asian kids pick up some the worst stereotypes of black people and see it as harmless fun -- and do it at a schools that has banned affirmative action and has declining numbers of black students? It would be surprising if they were NOT angry. Taken together, it's a giant f**k you to all the black kids at U Mich.

Many universities, as the article said, have some version of this racial tension and the particulars will differ in each case. What I think unites them all is a growing unease among many (but certainly not all) white students about a growing competition in the workplace and the fact that whites are a dwindling share of the population -- something emphasized IMO by the election of a black president.

Things are far better now in terms of race than they were generations ago, but I don't think they will continue to improve until we recognize and value our "racial" selves. As was pointed out in the story by an Asian kid, not having one's race/ethnicity recognized and valued is not a sign of some post-racial triumph, but a call to erase a fundamental part of one's history and identity. White people aren't going to do that. Why should anyone else?

[jobaba]

At first I thought they were being a little oversensitive, but the stuff was pretty bad.

'Hood Ratchet Thursday' Party At University Of Michigan Fraternity Canceled By School

Theta Xi Fraternity - About Us

I mean, everybody is immature at that age, so racism is pretty rampant on campus. I can remember some very racist incidents from when I went to school.

I always say, all it takes is knowing one person from that race/ethnicity and half of your stereotypes magically disappear.

Hopefully, they'll grow up.

[MemoryMaker]

I'm a black dude and I attend a large predominately white&asian public university in upstate New York.

I would actually say the race relations at this school are excellent (though the metro area itself is very segregated and known for racism). Literally all of the social circles that I have been in have been extremely mixed and there are lots of intermingling among the races (many/most students come from downstate and abroad).

I haven't really encountered much "serious" racism. I've mainly just witnessed/received others poking fun at each others ethnicity in a supposedly harmless way. I've never poked fun at others ethnicity since i've lived in a diverse environment all of my life and we've got over all of that crap in Kindergarden. I don't think those comments came from a place of hatred but from a place of adjusting to the diversity since most Americans come from extremely segregated environments (though of course i'm not justifying it).

I was close with one dude who would frequently make anti-minority comments [remember that i'm black] but we were very close and would even drink out of the same bottle and go a lot of places together so I think it was just a failed attempt at humor. Racism should not be tolerated and at times I regretted being around him but it's only as serious as you make of it.

Also, sometimes when alcohol is involved then some ppl can get really ignorant though (which is why I avoid alcohol/alcoholics at all costs). Most of the time when my race was made relevant to me, it involved a drunk person.