VICE - Being a White Student at a Historically Black College
28 replies, posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccZk_e3Tc5s
If it was the other way around people would be outraged by a lot of the statements.
Interesting video, regardless of what thoughts the title might summon
Sure but I don't think the situation's would be the same at all.
Black colleges represented sanctuaries for African-Americans for a long long time. While I agree the white student and others should be allowed in, I think it's interesting and understandable a lot of those students would have those views.
Remember for that a long time, universities like this were african-americans only option to have higher learning.
If it was the other way around a lot of the statements would straight up not make any sense.
Agreed the situations would definitely not be the same. The amount of backlash would be out of this world.
If you change the roles in your statement, "White colleges represented sanctuaries for White-Americans for a long long time. While I agree the black student and others should be allowed in, I think it's interesting and understandable a lot of those students would have those views." It sounds like white supremacy to me.
Also to quote a comment heard by one of the students, "If we had white people coming in here, I would feel disrespected." if inverted, 'If we had black people coming in here, I would feel disrespected.' Now that doesn't sound very good now does it? There are a lot more but I think this is enough.
I don't disagree with the idea, what I find unsettling is how this seems okay because it's black people doing it while if this was done by white people the school would most likely be forced to close cause of threads/protests/partitions.
The video could have been more neutral IMO. Fundamentally the message is good but poorly executed. It really shouldn't be such a big deal that students of different color can go to the same place and hang out.
Are you completely missing the point on purpose? You're completely ignoring context. Of course that would sound like white supremacy, because white people aren't and haven't been institutionally oppressed in America and don't need a sanctuary.
I'm trying to say that this is the wrong way to approach the problem. This doesn't help anything at all, it's pretty evident that people only see racism when it goes one way. I'm not missing the point at all. I'm saying that treating people equally, which is what we want, has to come from both sides. Now I was never brought up in America but when I went to school and we got our first student in the class who was not white we did exactly what we had done to all the other students who entered our class. Treat them kindly and get to know them. Treat them like you would any other person. If that means telling them they are trash when making racist remarks then so be it.
re the professor: if racism is about structures and institutions, is Morehouse not a structure? is it not an institution? I don't think quick quips about the definition of racism necessarily ties the knot here and avoids difficult questions about "reverse racism" (however much we wanna sneer at it). that being said, my gut would tell me that most white people just dont wanna go to Morehouse, and its not so much that morehouse is actively discriminating against admitting them.
very interesting documentary. enjoyed it.
I don't think you understand the history of these colleges which is fair because you appear to be danish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historically_black_colleges_and_universities
One of the most important parts of speech is the context you're in. There is a massively different context from a white person saying what you said at a historically white college to the guy in the video talking about HBCUs. African Americans have historically been not allowed at institutions of higher education, and even up till recently have been a minority or otherwise not have full access to higher educations as other people. HBCUs have been a requirement for African Americans, not because they necessarily believe in black supremacy but simply because these are places that they can be away from the rest of a society that in the past has not been all that accepting of the color of their skin. Meanwhile white people have access to almost any school in the country. That's the difference between those two people kind of talking and what makes it okay for black people to say it while white people would get suffocated in outrage. Perhaps in a vacuum without any biases or such, those statements would be treated much the same way in that they're patently racist, but due to the way black people need these kind of schools in some instances, it's not. It's the exact same as Black Lives Matter. Without the context of the police's continued targeted instances against blacks, it just sounds like people are saying that black lives matter more than everyone elses, but that's not the point of the movement. It's the lack of these contexts, it's the lack of of these contexts of being a minority in a still only partly accepting America that drives people to not understand some of the most important issues to blacks and other minorities....
Some hardcore tribalism being showcased by some of the students, but that's to be expected from humans I suppose. That alumni guy at 19:25 really shows his wisdom when he explains that the differences between people is based on money/power instead of race.
Is this still an issue in today's America tho? Genuine question here. Excuse me for being ill informed on this but isn't that done and over? The people in the video have not experienced being denied entry based on their race. Right?
If black people are still denied entrance in this day and age I can see why they would react like this. From what I can tell denying people entrance based on their race in the current America would not fly. I do not have proof of this and it is an assumption, if the case really is that black people still to this day get denied entry based on their race. Then there is a bigger problem at hand. If I am completely wrong here then please do tell me.
No, there's no issue of black people being denied entrance, but there is still a surprisingly large divide between blacks and whites, largely due to poverty (which is one of the biggest blockers to receiving education despite education being one of the best ways to get out of poverty) and some still sub-surface implicit racism happening, with there still being closet or even open racists. It's not like it was but there's still a problem no matter how much people like to pull the carpet over it. I can understand why you don't know about this since you don't live in America and all.
It still exists and happens all the time. I would wager that a lot of the students going to a place like Morehouse need a space like that just as much now as they used to.
Eh, what do you mean by unsaid? It's not exactly schools rejecting them and using excuses, since in general they have higher acceptance rates w/ the same GPAs iirc. I'm sure there are racists and bias doing their thing but it's hard to say if that's greater or less than affirmative action (even that based on poverty & not race.)
The thing really is though they aren't as likely to have the same GPAs, or are less able to afford the direct & opportunity cost of college. I'm not exactly sure what HBCUs do for this specifically, since looking up a few in my state their costs seem to be pretty much in-line with other public universities.
I understand the nuances with preserving culture and the notion of white privilege, but shutting out an individual and saying that they are not welcome because of the colour of their skin just doesn't sit right with me.
god i hope rich hipsters dont start invading and gentrifying schools for "the experience"
I can empathize with their perspective of feeling more comfortable and less marginalized among people who can understand and share their experiences, but I really don't know how comfortable I feel with that space's prolonged existence.
The reason minorities do not feel included in society is completely valid, as their history is one of, largely, exclusion and oppression. However, I cannot see the way forward as just flat out never interacting with others on that basis due to the color of their skin, regardless of who they are as a person. It seems patently obvious that the bridges between Black and White communities will never be mended so long as the two groups never actually interact and coalesce with each other. Everyone has a unique experience and perspective, and that's something that should be valued.
As far as I see it, mono-culturalistic groups only serve to reinforce tribalistic ideas and feelings towards those outside of that ingroup. While I can see a legitimate reason for their beneficial existence, that reality is too unfortunate to ignore.
It's interesting that diversity was once what we pushed for and celebrated, but now we push for "safe-spaces" which are, at the end of the day, completely segregated.
I honestly can't interpret the female professor's position in a non-racist way. It fundamentally stands on assigning individuals characteristics because they have a certain skin color.
Some people don't even want to admit it's racism and just take the cheap way out by defining it as "power + prejudice" so that any sort of racism towards white people won't count in their minds since they're not being systematically oppressed in America.
It's fucking frustrating. White people may have it better than everyone else in America, but bigotry doesn't stop being bigotry regardless of who it's being directed at.
I think it's far more useful to define the sort of Racism that she's talking about as "institutional racism" or "structural racism" rather than just saying that something cant be racist if it isn't structural/institutional. At this point, the term "Racism" is much more colloquially used to refer to any sort of racial prejudice, and trying to dodge that definition for the preservation of your own ends seems like hiding behind semantics to me.
I still don't even really understand what "institutional" and/or "structural" racism is. It often just seems to used in references to statistical differences in average group outcomes.
Racism that isn't just based upon what people act, say and do but ones intrinsically built into social and economic structures, even if when they are taken out of context they aren't inherently racist. A voter ID law meant to target anyone with any form of misdemeanors in a low-income black state, which of course would mainly target African voters, is an example.
Right, so your example is exactly what I'm talking about.
In that situation, you're looking at the average group outcomes (i.e. that black people, on average, are affected to a greater degree), but you're not really asking why that's the case. I would assume, in this case, that it would have a lot to do with black people being poorer, on average, than white people, and poorer people are more likely to not have a valid picture ID.
Wouldn't it be far more accurate to describe that as something like "institutional classism" than "institutional racism" since the cause is based on wealth and not skin color?
No because normally these laws are done specifically to target certain groups or if they aren't, they still almost exclusively target them. Republicans might push for those voter ID laws even if they remove several poor white (predominantly Republican) voters, because it will remove democratic leaning black voters. While the law in itself is not inherently racist because the law itself does not target a particular race or even class, it's still almost entirely made to disenfranchise Africans.
Sorry, I edited my post too slowly with a clarifying question, but it seems you answered it anyway.
So the part I don't understand is that this:
Seems very different from this:
One of them is a morally evil thing that fits under the normal usage of the term "racism," and the other is simply having a statistically different effect on the two groups, which is not inherently wrong (There are LOTS of laws that effect different groups in different ways for many reasons. Way more white people are convicted for embezzlement, for example, but that doesn't mean embezzlement laws are racist.)
To have both of those situations fit under the term "institutional racism" seems to make it almost useless. The response to those two situation is entirely different.
Do you think that the reason “Hipster Culture” moved into cheaper neighbors is because they’re rich kids who want to experience ghetto culture? That’s so not true at all.
”Hipsters” moved into those sorts of neighborhoods because they picked liberal arts degrees, realized that they cant get jobs so they move into poor neighborhoods in masses.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.