"...because it does make some of us POC uncomfortable when we see too many white people in here."

I guess she thought she'd found a non-white space. What's telling is that she was looking for one.

I remember reading a column by William Raspberry several years ago in which he discussed why someone would go to an HBCU when every university in the country is trying to attract non-white students. The discussion was a post-lecture forum with several students of an HBCU.

One student told him she went there because there were few, if any, white professors and students and she didn't have to deal with any racial issues. But, Raspberry countered, you'll encounter and have to deal with white people after graduation. Yes, she replied, but for now, for just some little portion of her life, she would not have to wonder whether she got a bad grade because the professor was racist, whether she got excluded from a club because the club members were racist.

Raspberry's column and the student's response made me think of A Soldier's Story in which the black sergeant of a colored infantry regiment training for World War II is racist toward his own people, especially a less-educated former sharecropper assigned to his unit - in a time when segregation was legal and rampant. The sergeant is murdered and two white rednecks are suspected, angering the black soldiers and causing racial unrest. Howard Rollins plays the black officer (rare in those days) sent to investigate.

It also made me think of an episode of Frank's Place in which Frank, a black professor from Brown and owner of a restaurant in New Orleans, is invited to join a local black businessman's club. His staff introduces him to the "paper bag test" and he finds out that he's been invited in order to "integrate" a club whose membership was historically restricted to light-skinned black men (no one darker than a paper bag). "I refuse to the be the only black man at a black man's club," Frank tells his erstwhile sponsor, rejecting the invitation.

Separate but equal?

This is what today's Democratic Party and its archipelago of journalists, celebrities, and professors are all about: categorizing people and restricting them to the behavior, roles, and beliefs which have been assigned to people of that category.

After encountering this racist, how many white students will abandon the democratic party and vote for Trump?

I have seen this curious thing that blacks will prefer to stay in South Side Chicago where shootings are rampant rather than venture out to the suburbs where they feel "uncomfortable". No one is getting lynched anymore but this attitude persists.

What the hell is an HBCU? Why can't people spell out the term they are using so we commoners will not be bewildered by the erudite musings of the intelligencia.

Historically
Black
College
University

Typically in the south, places like Florida A&M, Bethune-Cookman, North Carolina A&T, Prairie View A&M, Southern, and Jackson State. Obvious ties to agricultural and mechanical arts.

In some cases, historically poorly managed.

Why can't people spell out the term they are using so we commoners will not be bewildered by the erudite musings of the intelligencia.

Jay at February 25, 2020 10:44 AM

That you lump me in with the intelligentsia is both flattering and disturbing.

Sorry, since there were big news stories about Trump reaching to black voters by promising additional funding the the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, I though everyone knew that acronym.

Those racialists who keep harping on people being aware (and ashamed) of their "whiteness" should be careful what they wish for ... they are most likely going to get it. However, "shame" won't be part of it. Inevitably, White Pride is going to be a thing. Too bad, so sad.

This type of racism has been normal for decades at least. If it was common 40-50 years ago I wasn't in a position to notice but I wouldn't be surprised if it was common then as well.

What has changed is people are complaining about this kind of racism. 20 years ago this happened but it wasn't polite to call it out for what it is. One man is responsible for that amazing change . . . Obama. After he was elected most of the excuses about how oppressed black people are were shown for just how ridiculous those claims are. Saying the 'most powerful man in the world' was also a victim of oppression caused too much cognitive dissonance. So now people are less accepting of overt racism from blacks.

Thanks Obama.

"Karen" memes... you get to be racist, sexist and agist all in one, while still pretending to be Woke!

Jay, sorry about that... HBCU is a term we've batted around here before, but it's been a while.

We have a public HBCU where I life. It's spent the past four decades trying to figure out what its purpose in life is. It's not really an existential crisis since it's assured of state funding, but it's been a crisis of purpose. What is an HBCU's role when the community is becoming more culturally complex with Hispanic and Asian immigrants? What humanities does it teach in an era when the political faction to which most of its faculty and students belong has discarded the very idea of humanities? And how much success does it expect to have with STEM when all the serious STEM students go to the highly regarded (and fully integrated) engineering school across town?

And as Darth suggests, it's bounced from one administration scandal to the next. About 20 years ago, the state actually paid some one-time reparations payments to all of the state's HBCUs. What did ours do with the money? Did they build new classrooms? Upgrade laboratories? Add student housing? Perform outreach efforts? No. They spent it on a new football stadium. Nobody said anything out loud -- they wouldn't dare. But everyone noticed.