Segregated Dining: The New College Rage

h/t to reader Jeff, who said this took place at ASU, as well as the University of Buffalo.

What do you do when you can't find any of that good ol' segregation from the past? You create it on college campuses and, based on reports, leave students upset and make others mad. It's the latest in multicultural education courtesy of the NAACP - "We do Black History Month the old fashion way."

Members of the NAACP acted as servers and even security guards in order to make the experience as authentic as possible.

"I think something like this is good to do because we get to experience what it was like in the past," ... "But I'm still pissed."

Strokes' was referring to the rude treatment and unsightly décor encountered by those at the minority section, including ripped paper plates on the tables and pepperoni on the floor.

"I'm absolutely repulsed. If I wasn't absolutely hungry and if the pizza wasn't free I would not be eating here," said Valerie Daniel, a freshman management major.

Good to see Val discovering the mountain top ... where the pizza is free! And no wonder students were upset, the simulation seems to have stopped just short of making minorities, including Jews, wear a ball and chain.

"We wanted to set off black history month with a bang," said Richard Lawrence....

Some students were even chased to the minority line with derogatory names and some mixed race students were allowed to remain on the whites-only side based on the lightness of their hair.

"We knew that there would be a lot of negative emotion, but that's what we wanted.

Just what we need in America today, more negative emotion injected into the race debate. Even a janitor got into the act.

The demonstration even rallied up a protestor. Custodial worker Lettie Frazier marched nearby holding up a sign that said, "We have rights too, free us!" She was prepared to lie down in front of the whites only serving table to prevent the students from getting food.

It's not quite Rosa Parks, but it's college and the NAACP circa 2007, what did you expect? At least, as stated above, they were inclusive - and segregated the Jews.

In order to make sure that no non-white students got preferential treatment, many were asked whether or not they were Jewish before being served. If they were, they were directed to the minority line.

Great. Now that they have this out of their system, they can go back to normal, where white people walk around on egg shells for fear of saying anything at all related to race as it might be turned against them, scoring them a front row seat at the segregation cafe.

God Bless America, one nation under God something or other with free pizza for all! So, whatever happened to can't we all just get along?

Comments

[Jeff]

It's really interesting to note that the goal at some point must have been to spark outrage in the black community. Just look at the janitor who was planning on physically blocking the "white only" line. I don't get the point of this, it has nothing to do with sparking an intellectual debate, it has to do with the African American community trying to justify their post-Katrina victim mentality. "George Bush does not care about black people." Apparently this is why.

[tom scott]

The wound is healing--lets rip the scab off and let the bleeding resume.

[clazy]

These people have switched from coal to anything that will burn to keep the gravy train rolling.

[scarshapedstar]

Well, it's really easy for people today to say that "Segregation doesn't sound so bad. I mean, bathrooms are segregated by sex, and nobody cares."

[tom scott]

The wound is healing--lets rip the scab off and let the bleeding resume.

[TheSpartan]

There have been a number of instances recently of white fraternity groups holding MLK parties complete with 40's, bling and black face, clearly there's still some learning left to do.

[ava]

On MLK day, Fox reported that in a poll of elementary children across the nation, most young black children had no idea what MLK stood for, but all had heard of him. Several thought that he had something to do with freeing the slaves.

[Jamie]

I'm utterly convinced that I, a white woman, can't truly internalize the experience of a person of color in the US. That said, I've given a lot of thought to what that experience is, these days, based in part on my own experience as a woman (my very own oppressed group) and in part on my observations, limited as they are by my socioeconomic class (my husband insists that discrimination these days is all about class, nothing about skin color, and it sure seems to me that at least for the middle class and up, there's a lot of evidence for his assertion). It's hard for me to believe that this particular observation of Black History Month, held at universities and attended by people who, given their current circumstances and apparent ambitions, aren't likely to be holding down any ghetto street corners, is very productive.

So what's the point? Does it actually Advance the cause of Colored People (as the NAACP's very name implies) to replay the injustices of the past? Dr. King had a dream, not a nightmare.

[Jeff]

Good point, maybe I should have brought a copy of Dr. King's I Have A Dream speech and highlighted two parts: "One day man will be judged not by the color of skin, but the content of his character;" as well as the part that said, "Free at last, free at last!"

Now my school is judging students for the color of their skin, and not the content of their character, and saying, "Oppressed at last, oppressed at last."

Why is it that liberal groups who claim to love equality have such a desire to renew the race wars of the 50's and 60's. We see a reenactment of the core reason for the race wars at my school, maybe they are just hoping that out of the radical point of views so often seen today, that a new Malcolm X will be borne. If there is any doubt that this isn't supposed to cause a race war, just look at the janitor who was willing to risk embarrassment (and must have been, protesting a mock event as if it were real). This is just what history has shown us as events that lead to a social uproar. What is the cause for uproar though? We have equality... I think that (as I said earlier) liberal groups won't ever claim the equality that we (as conservative) know exists until we have a pure Hugo Chavez socialism. That is the root of all this victimology.