African American
Showing Original Post only (View all)I remember a discussion over the validity of a CA black student not wanting any white roommates [View all]
The arguments against this particular student were...
- Accusations of the black student being a "snowflake."
- Accusations of "racism" against white people.
- Accusations of practicing "segregation" against whites.
- Hypocrisy by black people.
- Sanctioned bigotry.
- Cognitive dissonance.
- No difference than white supremacy. And more.
However, one thing that has wasn't considered by many was the expectation of eventual discrimination and bigoted behavior by what could have been the student's white roommates. As I've mentioned in the discussion, for people of color, there really is no escape from white centering, white identification and white focusing in the outside world. We all live in a society that's clearly delineated by the rules of white privilege through white supremacy. As black people, we also know that such a world quite easily legitimizes violence against simply because we're black. It's the double standard. One clear example is shown in the way that law enforcement uses deadly force against unarmed black body, as it even declines to use deadly force against armed whites.
Given this, perhaps what should have been considered was that the concerns of the black student were completely valid. Especially in situations where blacks are outnumbered by whites... Whites who are not accustomed to associating with those outside of their own race, in particular.
Although the other discussion focused on a story from California, this point is clearly demonstrated by something that happened at the University of North Dakota, a place I'm sure that isn't particularly diverse:
Of course, UND is no stranger to racist behavior by students. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/14/super-dumb-und-its-hard-shake-racism-youve-enabled-so-long-154855 But such problems are apparent in many other college campuses as well. https://www.jbhe.com/incidents/
Racism on predominately white college campuses is a real problem. It's as real as it is in our white dominated society outside of the academic environment. Yet, in spite of all of the effort of anti-racism forces to confront this problem and draw the attention of university administrations to it, it's not going away any time soon. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-campus-racism-just-wont-go-away/2016/02/19/cdc30ac6-cab9-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html?utm_term=.c3ac4ad69049
Whenever whites in particular dismiss these problems, it's not very helpful at all. As a matter of fact, it's downright counter-productive.