REAL RACISM (CONT.)

This latest installment of Real Racism comes to us from the University of San Francisco.

Excerpted from Michelle Fortunato’s article at thecollegefix.com:

The University of San Francisco this week is scheduled to host a segregated orientation dedicated to white students, a program that takes place in addition to its standard welcoming activities for all students.

The White Student Orientation is slated for  Aug. 18, the day prior to the university’s New Student Orientation.

The day-long event–billed as having been “designed by White students, faculty, and staff to welcome new White students to the USF White Experience”–will “address the specific and particular needs of European American/White students at USF,” according to the school’s website.

Are you outraged?  Sickened by the overt racism you just read about?  Ready to march on the USF campus in protest?

Well, don’t worry.  It’s not what you think.

Yes, everything I wrote about the day long event is true.  But I reversed colors.  So it’s not racist at all, you see.

Here is is the real article’s excerpt:

The University of San Francisco this week is scheduled to host a segregated orientation dedicated to black students, a program that takes place in addition to its standard welcoming activities for all students.

The Black Student Orientation is slated for  Aug. 18, the day prior to the university’s New Student Orientation.

The day-long event–billed as having been “designed by Black students, faculty, and staff to welcome new Black students to the USF Black Experience”–will “address the specific and particular needs of African American/Black students at USF,” according to the school’s website.

The program includes workshops such as “Community Building” and “Creating a 4 Year Plan.”

The College Fix reached out to Kim Harris, assistant director of orientation programs at the private, Catholic institution, to ask if the school provides any other ethnic-based orientation programs.

“Not that I know of,” Harris responded via e-mail. “But we do have a mostly first generation [orientation] program…This group is comprised mostly of students of color.”

Harris told The Fix that the Black Student Orientation is being run by Dr. Ja’Nina Garrett-Walker, an assistant professor in the department of psychology at the university.

The Fix reached out repeatedly to Garrett-Walker for comment regarding the history of the Black Student Orientation, as well as for elaboration on the “specific and particular needs of African American/Black Students at USF.” Garrett-Walker did not respond.

Why would the USF allow such an overtly racist event to take place?

Well, maybe it’s because Black students, as a minority, might feel isolated on campus, and therefore have a psychic need to congregate with each other so they could get past their feelings of……

……forget it.  Here, from the school’s own website, is the makeup of last year’s incoming class:

Incoming Freshman Class (Fall 2016)

Students: 1,596 
Gender: Females 61.7%, Males 38.3%
Students of color: 73.8%

Obviously, if anyone has a reason to feel isolated on campus it is not Black students…or female students.  It is White male students who, if the skin color data hold by gender, comprise less than 10% of the entire campus population.

I conclude, therefore, that the actual purpose of this Black Students Only orientation is not to bring Black students together and make them more comfortable, it is to exclude White students and make them feel more uncomfortable.

In the name of diversity?  I’m just asking.

I won’t bother telling you why this has become the latest installment of this ugly series.  You already know.

Real Racism.  It comes in all forms from all sources.  No group is immune to it or from it.  Certainly not a college campus that seems to think racism is perfectly fine – depending on which skin color you are talking about.