Spring Break
OP-ED: Minority issues have been ignored
by Ibrahim Sundiata
Op-Ed | 5/22/07
Posted online at 1:43 AM EST on 5/22/07
"Every college administrator knows that 'diversity' is a code for 'at least five percent black faces with a goodly sprinkling of Latinos.' They also know that this is only achievable through quota systems euphemized by artful terminology, chronic double-talk and outright lies. Nor do any of them miss, as black students dutifully erupt in furious protest every second spring over manufactured or trivial instances of 'racism,' that in practice campus 'diversity' means black students are carefully taught that they are eternal victims in their own land."
Two months ago the author of this quote, John McWhorter, visited our campus. At a place where various speakers have produced outpourings of opinion, McWhorter came and went almost unnoticed. Indeed, the swift coming and going of the diversity critic was symptomatic of the place of blacks at the margins of campus concerns…except when there is a problem. In the wake of Jimmy Carter, Alan Dershowitz, et. al., a debate on diversity seemed almost irrelevant.
Then came the spring. Like many on this campus, I am appalled by the material in the recent issue of Gravity, the campus humor magazine. I strongly feel that student funds should not be used to subsidize any publication that demeans any member of our community. After a decade and a half at Brandeis, I have an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. The present furor is a sad reminder of how very marginalized black people on this campus are-we are a "problem."
We are a family, but African-American students have often told me that they feel like the step-children of their alma mater. At least one has expressed fatigue with the need to constantly explain why racism hurts and why African-American students have a right to be here. It is a burden no young person should have to shoulder.
I am very glad that Jamele Adams, the assistant dean of student life in support of diversity, held a forum a couple weeks ago at which student voices got to be heard. Abandoning the dramaturgy of victimization and demonization, perhaps some small progress can be made. I do not need to see the editors of Gravity as Klansmen. As archaic and crude as it was, I do not need to call its author a "hater" to know that it was "hateful."
Two months ago the author of this quote, John McWhorter, visited our campus. At a place where various speakers have produced outpourings of opinion, McWhorter came and went almost unnoticed. Indeed, the swift coming and going of the diversity critic was symptomatic of the place of blacks at the margins of campus concerns…except when there is a problem. In the wake of Jimmy Carter, Alan Dershowitz, et. al., a debate on diversity seemed almost irrelevant.
Then came the spring. Like many on this campus, I am appalled by the material in the recent issue of Gravity, the campus humor magazine. I strongly feel that student funds should not be used to subsidize any publication that demeans any member of our community. After a decade and a half at Brandeis, I have an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. The present furor is a sad reminder of how very marginalized black people on this campus are-we are a "problem."
We are a family, but African-American students have often told me that they feel like the step-children of their alma mater. At least one has expressed fatigue with the need to constantly explain why racism hurts and why African-American students have a right to be here. It is a burden no young person should have to shoulder.
I am very glad that Jamele Adams, the assistant dean of student life in support of diversity, held a forum a couple weeks ago at which student voices got to be heard. Abandoning the dramaturgy of victimization and demonization, perhaps some small progress can be made. I do not need to see the editors of Gravity as Klansmen. As archaic and crude as it was, I do not need to call its author a "hater" to know that it was "hateful."
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