White students will no longer be allowed to use a new student lounge for the remainder of the spring semester. According to The College Fix, American University announced that the lounge would serve as “a sanctuary for people of color” following a racist incident that occurred last month. The Washington, D.C.-based private university is one of many American schools that have adopted anti-white racist policies in recent years.
In April, the university launched a public safety investigation after authorities discovered bananas in three separate campus spaces hanging from strings tied in the shape of a hangman’s noose. The incidents happened soon after two white students were alleged to have thrown bananas at a black student; a rotten banana was also found outside of a black student’s dorm room. “AKA” and “Harambe” were written on the bananas.
The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has partnered with the FBI and campus police to probe the banana event.
To date, it remains unclear if the incident was a hoax, hate crime or a case of vandalism. Since the election of President Donald Trump, hoax hate crimes have been perpetrated everywhere from college campuses to religious buildings.
Nevertheless, without any evidence, student activists confronted staff. Romayit Cherinet, a college junior and protester, told a crowd:
Do I not pay? Do I not pay for tuition? Do I come here and try as best as possible to ignore these racist ass white people? To ignore the microaggressions every single day?
The activists then issued three demands: banning whites from The Bridge Café for the rest of the semester, giving non-white students extensions on their finals and allowing an independent investigation on accusations of campus racism and discrimination against the school.
Approximately one-hundred faculty and staff members signed a “solidarity statement.” Provost Scott Bass agreed to the “reasonable demands”:
This is just the minimum. These are reasonable demands. We are interested in building the kind of community which will we are all proud of. There’s nothing more important, in terms of my administration, than being a multicultural campus.
What was meant to be a community-based space for open mic nights, poetry slams, student programming, and other events, has now metastasized into a politicized, self-segregated, racist area.
American University isn’t the only academic institution to normalize anti-white racism.
Last year, the University of Wisconsin (UW) introduced a “Problem of Whiteness” course for African Cultural Studies. After widespread complaints, UW defended the program:
We believe this course, which is one of thousands offered at our university, will benefit students who are interested in developing a deeper understanding of race issues. The course is a challenge and response to racism of all kinds.
UW also permitted students to sell anti-police and anti-white sweatshirts. One hoodie states: “All White People Are Racist.”
For the Spring 2017 semester, the University of Colorado offered a course called “Problematizing Whiteness: Educating for Racial Justice.” According to Campus Reform, the first assignment for the course is titled “Getting Down and Dirty with Whiteness,” and the initial question is, “What have you learned about whiteness and how does it apply to what you see in life?”
In the name of progress, American schools are regressing by implementing segregation.
Harvard University made headlines last week when it announced that it would segregate graduation ceremonies based on race. Harvard is following the lead of Columbia, Stanford and Temple Universities. But, Michael Huggins, a Harvard graduate student, said it “is not about segregation”:
This is an opportunity to celebrate Harvard’s Black excellence and Black brilliance. It’s an event where we can see each other and our parents and family can see us as a collective, whole group. A community.
This is not about segregation. It’s about fellowship and building a community. This is a chance to reaffirm for each other that we enter the work world with a network of supporters standing with us. We are all partners.
All of this is simply head scratching.
The era of racial segregation was a sad chapter in U.S. history. For years, blacks would have to drink from “colored” water fountains or go through “colored” entrances of movie theaters. Leaders of the civil rights movement and the millions of participants worked hard to rightfully abolish this odious practice and bring about equality for all.
Unfortunately, their generational successors – blacks, whites, Hispanics – are working diligently to bring back segregation. What would civil rights proponents of the 1950s and 1960s think of today’s trends?