Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 May 2002 — Page 4

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THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

FRIDAY, MAY 10,2002

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Educate students on race before college

The University of Mississippi does just that. Freshmen are required to take a six-week class, called U.S.A. 101, that deals significantly with race in America. Despite the mandatory class, the university has had to deal with race on its campus. It did not help that white students at Ole Miss were photographed at a Halloween party last year in which members of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity dressed in blackface and displayed gross insensitivity. A party photograph showed a white student dressed as a police officer pointing a gun at a man in blackface pretending to be picking cotton. The university kicked the fraternity off campus. The fraternity, in turn, expelled the students. As embarrassing as the incident was, administrators hope something good will come out of their efforts to sensitize white students. “A lot of times, it’s months and years after that before you know if you’ve changed any opinions,” says Thomas D. Wallace, vice chancellor for student life at Ole Miss. Raymond A. Winbush, director of the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University in Nashville and former assistant provost at Vanderbilt University, says an increasing number of African Americans are not interested in trying to change opinions that some whites hold of them. “Essentially, campuses are far more conservative now. And this is why you’re seeing an increase in attendance at Black colleges because a lot of these Black parents are saying, T don’t want my child to be going through that. I’ll send them to Fisk. I’ll send them to Tennessee State or Howard or some place like that,”’ Winbush says. African-American enrollment at Historically Blade Colleges' and Universities (HCBUs), after two consecutive years of decreases, showed no decline in 1998. That was a major achievement, considering white college enrollment declined by 2.2 percent from 1994 to 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Brandon Green is one of those students who chose to attend a college where the majority of students look like him. “I went to a white high school and I’m just tired of it,” says the freshman majoring in computer science at Virginia State University in Petersburg. He graduated from James River High School in Chesterfield County, and already sees the difference. “People pay attention to you (in a Black school). People hear what you have to say. And they don’t think that you’re saying something just to say it.” Some African-American faculty members are moving from predominantly white universities to HBCUs. “I still think there are some opportunities that are unique to minority institutions,” says Dr. Gary H. Gibbons director of the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Cardiovascular Research Institute in Atlanta. Gibbons, who graduated from Princeton with a degree in biology and from Harvard with a degree in medicine, established the research institute at Morehouse in 1999 after teaching at Stanford and, later. Harvard Medical School. “1 think it is a matter of personal responsibility of people of color to develop solutions to problems that affect our communities in particular rather than to passively accept so-called solutions that are designed for us,” Gibbons explains. “With all due respect to my friends and colleagues at Harvard and Stanford, although it’s trendy now to talk about ethnic disparities in health for example, this is something that Morehouse Medical School was actually founded upon and takes as its core mission, not something that is a trend or a fad.” Inasmuch as 8S.8 percent of

Continued from A1 “There was a time In our experience when because racism was very obvious, you had Black people going to universities and succeeding even when going to the back off the class,” Dr. Francis Crest Welslng

all Black college students attend predominantly white institutions, they must learn to cope with racism on campus. “There was a time in our experience when because racism was very obvious, you had Black people going to universities and succeeding even when going to the back of the class,” recalls Dr. Francis Crest Welsing, a child psychiatrist in Washington, D.C., and former Howard University professor. “... This is a variation of everything that our ancestors have experienced over the last 500 years.” In varying degrees, young people are now living through some of those same experiences. “These hate incidents are increasing primarily because it’s ‘in’ to be hateful,” Winbush says, citing a rise in right-wing think tanks, political pundits and ultraconservative radio talk show hosts. “These young white people who 30 years ago were demonstrating against the Vietnam War are now supporting this so-called war on terrorism. Racial profiling is back in style because of Sept. 11. The issue of reparations is going to become a cutting edge issue on these campuses. You’re going to see an increased polarization of Black students and white students on college campuses for the next 10 years in this country.” Universities are being urged to increase their efforts to ease racial tension and to appoint African Americans to significant administrative posts. “I’m not talking about Vice President of Negroes, but I’m talking about a person who has an office, a major office with four or five people in it, at least, and a budget for programming and so forth,” says Winbush. Peggy Moss, associate director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence at the University of Southern Maine in Portland and a former prosecutor for the Maine attorney general’s office, says it is important for university administrators to react quickly to racist incidents. “We learned that prior to anyone getting injured, there were months and months of time during which people heard slurs and degrading language on campus,” Moss recalls. Southern Maine holds an annual training in August for campus.leaders from 10 to 15 universities on how to diffuse racism. “Students are saying to other students, ‘Hey, we don’t talk like that,’ ‘Hey, it’s not all right to say that around me,’ ‘Don’t use those words,’ or ‘That’s not cool,”’ Moss says. The Community Relations Service (CRS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, also has a staff that is trained to intervene before problems get out of hand. Director Sharee M. Freeman says, “We’re looking to see where racial strife might break out next and try and do some prevention.” Indiana University knows all about racial strife. “After a group of whites who appeared to be Indiana students attacked a Black student jogger that year — and following a major outcry from students at the

campus (1988) - the school formed a Racial Incidents Team,” according to the CRS report, “Responding to Hate Crimes and Bias-motivated incidents on Collegfe/University Campuses.” That team “works with the university’s Commission on Multicultural Understanding to extract ‘educational outcomes’ from college conflicts over race or culture.” In other words, students, faculty and administrators are mobilized to lessen tension. Even with the national praise the university has received as a result of forming the special team, Indiana officials have riled Black students by refusing to remove a mural from campus that includes robed Ku Klux (Clansmen burning a cross with a church in the background. The mural, painted by noted artist Thomas Hart Benton, has been at the university since 1941. The mural, one of a series, was commissioned by the university to depict the history of Indiana. Part of that history includes a time when the KKK was a political force. The University of Michigan, which is undergoing major challenges to its affirmative action program, has a crime prevention policy that calls for holding meetings between school officials and the targeted group of a hate attack. Referrals for professional counseling are made, if necessary, and public meetings are conducted on hate threats and violence. University trustees and officials are proving they are serious about diversity by adamantly defending affirmative action in court at a cost of more than $7 million. Rev. Robert Franklin, president of the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, believes the Black church also has a role to play. “It is really quite appropriate for the Black church to provide instruction on the nature of interracial cooperation and reconciliation. We certainly have the vocabulary for talking about racism as sin and social evil.” ’ Students every where are talking about developing a culture of acceptance that goes beyond mere tolerance. And the church can’t compensate for universities that fail to confront racism. “I think we have a responsibility as educational institutions to make sure that minority students have a secure environment in which to grow to their greatest potential and excel,” says Dr. Gibbons of Morehouse. “At the end of the day, I think our vision is to fulfill Martin Luther King’s dream to be judged by the content of our character.” Until that dream becomes reality. Dr. Francis Crest Welsing says, Black students must learn to cope in a hostile environment. “This is not about hating white people. It is about having an accurate decoding of the environment in which you find yourself and moving forward and ultimately changing the environment,” she says. “During segregation, our ancestors would say you have to be 10 times as good. This still applies today.”

FESTIVAL Continued from A1

napolis Education Association. The theme of the event is “A Celebration of Diversity.” Student work will demonstrate how culture and history can be infused into the instructional program. Student performances highlighting ethnic music, dance, theater, and storytelling from countries around the world will be featured on stage. Creative writing skills will be displayed in books authored by IPS students. Cultural organizations, community agencies, school districts, universities and individu-

als who value and embrace diversity will join IPS in this annual extravaganza. Pat Payne, director of multicultural education for the Indianapolis Public Schools and coordinator of the event said, “This exciting, educational event will, celebrate the diversity that is so prevalent in our communities. It will promote understanding, respect and appreciation for cultural diversity in Indianapolis and throughout the world.” The event is free and the public is welcome.