Washington Watch with Roland Martin

Thursday, September 2, 2010

College officials flunk in face of repeated racist incidents

March 4, 2010 by Roland  
Filed under Featured, News

Before the ill named and famed “Compton Cook Out” ignited a firestorm of student rage and protest at the University of California, San Diego and several other UC campuses, there was the “Halloween in the Hood” party, the lynching parties, and the Klan frolic at other universities. Then there’s the standard variety of hanging nooses, white hoods, racist graffiti, racial slurs and taunts that have been aimed at minority students. The colleges that have been called on the carpet for the racist acts read like a who’s who of American higher education. Clemson University, Auburn, Lehigh, Tarleton State, Texas A&M, University of Texas, Austin, University of Connecticut, Johns Hopkins, Whitman College to name a handful.

The pattern is always the same after a racist outburst. Teary eyed, enraged students confront campus officials. The officials, in turn, issue the obligatory indignant denunciation of the racial offense. A legislator or two may chime in with equal indignation. A fingered lily white fraternity will issue a quick statement disavowing any knowledge or responsibility for the racist act of a few of their members. If students squawk loud and long enough, campus officials will convene campus wide sensitivity sessions where students vent and rage at the administrators and at each other. If the students continue to squawk, campus officials will pledge to institute new diversity training, recruit more minority students, and hire more minority teachers and administrators, and maybe even an ombudsman.

UCSD officials used this template to the letter. Why not, it’s a time tested formula for stonewalling protest, and dissipating student anger. Campus administrators know that time is on their side. Students have to take exams and finals, write, term papers, hustle grades, and search for jobs.

But there’s a problem, really three problems, with this. Time, promises, and token efforts to change won’t magically make the hate and ignorance that spawned the racial offenses at their schools disappear. The propensity of some students to slander, slur, mock and insult black and Latino students mirrors the hate acts that occur virtually daily in society. The Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks hate groups notes that hate groups are on the rise, and the slurs, taunts, insults, vandalism, threats, hanging nooses, white hoods, and Confederate flags seen and heard on college campuses are seen and heard on billboards, signs, on web sites, and in chat rooms, at marches, and rallies across the country. The race pounding of President Obama by talk jocks, bloggers, tea baggers, and the usual suspect assorted kooks, zanies, and crazies has been non-stop.

To read this article in its entirety visit TheGrio.com.

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  • Montana
    (1) UCSD: A group of dumb white frat guys hold an event called a "Compton Cookout." This pisses people off as it used Black History Month as a reason to mock black people with racist stereotypes. Also involved is some idiot who tries to use this opportunity for shameless self-promotion, who also happens to be black. To say the least, the guy is basically a wannabe Flavor Flav.

    (2) UCSD: Another dumb white frat guy gets mad that blacks are offended of being relegated to a bigoted stereotype. He tries to hold another racist event.

    (3) UCSD: Meanwhile, a terrible student media publication (which, after viewing their website consists of all white staff, nudity, staff wrestling each other, and well, not much else), pushes their limits calling black students "ungrateful n----" - not just that word, but also that apparently the black students owed them something. They have a reputation of being trashy, and at this point, administration and faculty rush to condemn racism by students of the campus and various protests begin. Funding is also cut from all student media at UCSD, creating an extra bitter controversy.

    (4) UCSD: On Friday of that week, a noose is found in the library. Everything gets worked in a frenzy and - something I'll address later - a large amount of white commenter's on the internet begin claiming that is was probably a black student who planted it in order to gain more sympathy. In addition, there are rumors of a threatening note sent to the Guardian and a second noose, there was no second noose, and the threat seems to be just a rumor.

    (5) UCSD: Protests basically happen at all schools in support of the students. There are various sit-ins, and teach-ins, and what have you. School administrators become pushed to be more active in fixing what's going on.

    I have not seen this noose person, but most of you blame her and conveniently forget wear this all originated.

    Instead of an apology there has been steady escalation and now the noose. So, what exactly will the excuses be for this cowardly act that brings up memories of the confederate KKK of the South in their attempts to keep slavery and the non-whites in fear? Is it that are uneducated, is it that their parents planted these seeds of hate, is it that they are live in fear because our President in the white house is not 100% white. In my opinion this is what the small portions of the republican party of "birthers, baggers and blowhards" have brought you. These kids are good at "Follow the Leader" of their dullard leaders, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O'Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards, they are young and dumb. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think? The world is complicated and most republicans (Hamiliton, Lincoln, Roosevelt) believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although most republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe they have a long way to go.
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