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In
the dark of night on Aug. 29, with the new academic year
beginning at the University of Virginia, three students
painted a primitive image and some cryptic phrases on
Beta Bridge. The picture portrayed a woman in a spread
eagle pose and a pair of breasts; her black face was
crying white tears. Alongside appeared the words,
"we'll be back," as well as "GSociety,"
"GWizard" and "G-Bug."
At
another time, the incident would have been blown off as
a harmless student prank. Beta Bridge on Rugby Road, after all, is
renowned as billboard of colorful graffiti where artwork
rarely lasts a day or two before someone else paints it
over. But August 29 was not an ordinary time for UVa.
Fuming over a series of racial incidents the previous
week, many black students interpreted the messages as a
threat. Some thought "GWizard" signified
"Grand Wizard," a high office of the Ku Klux
Klan. The black face and white tears seemed to have a
racial dimension. The notation, "we'll be
back," seemed ominous and threatening.
Concerned,
university President John T. Casteen III referred
photographs of the graffiti to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Special Agent James Lamb reported back a
few days later: "A review by agents in the Civil
Rights Unit found nothing to suggest racial
implications."
The
next day, the three students wrote a letter of apology
characterizing the flap as a misinterpreted stunt.
"The graffiti was originally intended to be an
artistic expression, and at no time was hate or racism
even mentioned in its conception," they wrote.
"This letter is first and foremost an apology. An
apology for marring a treasured tradition, bringing more
racial tension to the already saturated atmosphere, and
for the trouble we have caused our treasured University
of Virginia."
But
many black students remained unconvinced of the
students' innocence. "The fact that those titles
and pictures were painted atop the message of two
historically black organizations (Kappa Alpha Psi and
B.U.C.K.S) during a time when racial tensions are high
and incidents are continuously occurring leads me to
question how artistic their motives are," wrote
Krystal Commons in the Cavalier Daily.
Aaron
Blake, president of the Black Student Alliance, wasn't
buying the artistic-expression story either, suggesting
to the Cavalier Daily that some of the evidence
had been destroyed by the time the FBI and university
authorities reviewed it.
Despite
repeated and forceful condemnations of the earlier
racial incidents by Casteen and other senior
administrators, despite solidarity rallies and
sympathetic commentary in the Cavalier Daily,
many black students remain wary. Indeed, many have made
it clear that they do not
feel at all welcome at Mr. Jefferson's university.
Cult
of victimhood? U.Va. News Services cutline for this
photo: "In a show of solidarity with their
victimized peers, dozens of students donned black
T-shirts at Saturday's home football game."
Students
are "scared," Student Council President Jequetta Upton
told the University News Services three weeks after the
Beta Bridge incident. As paraphrased by the News
Services, "Upton
said that students generally believe that the incidents
result from deep-seated intolerance ... are not merely pranks and have not
been provoked."
"I
have been forced to deal with ... overbearing, regular
occasions of hatred towards minorities on [the]
Grounds," wrote Krystal Commons, the Cavalier
Daily letter writer. "I cannot but feel
personally attacked, even though I have not been a
victim of these incidences directly."
"It's
disgusting," Jean Hall, a student and head of the
U.Va. chapter of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, told Carlos Santos with
the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "We walk around
in fear. ... I don't feel like I belong, like certain
students and professors don't welcome me. I'm extremely
uncomfortable."
Even
M. Rick Turner, dean of African-American Affairs,
characterized the string of racial incidents in August
as "unprecedented racial terrorism
acts."
Blacks
have never felt entirely welcome at UVa, which has
struggled for years to overcome its legacy of
segregation and, subsequently, less overt forms of
discrimination. Yet, despite occasional eruptions of
controversy -- such as an infamous white fraternity
party in which guests appeared in blackface -- black
students have rarely expressed this degree of
alienation.
As
an alumnus who attended the university in the early
1970s, shortly after it was integrated, I remember race
relations as being awkward and tentative but never this
divisive. For society at large, race relations are
far better now than they were 30 years ago: The mixing
of the races in the workplace and public places is so
routine as to be banal. Why, I wonder, is the situation
at UVa so volatile now?
It
is no small irony that late this summer, shortly before
the first of the racial incidents, UVa had hailed
"the most diverse class in UVa history" along
with success at recruiting new African-American faculty.
The percentage of African-American students stood at 8.8
percent of the student body. And unlike some
institutions where blacks are recruited then left to
fend for themselves, 87.2 percent of all
African-Americans graduate, only a smidgeon under the
92.5 percent white graduation rate. Furthermore, after a
year-long national search, the university was preparing
to announce the appointment of the William B. Harvey, as
the university's first vice president and chief officer
for diversity and equity.
UVa
is not a racist institution in the traditional sense, nor does it harbor
any Bull Connor/Lester Maddox-style race baiters. But
the university long ago abandoned the idea of a
color-blind society. Instead, the official mantra is
"diversity." Rather than submerging racial
differences, official university policy is to celebrate
them. In practice, celebration of differences has
transmuted into a cultivation of differences with
the result that, despite their intimate proximity in
classes and student housing, blacks and whites arguably
interact less on the grounds than they do in broader
society. Thus, the brief epidemic of racial incidents
must be seen against a backdrop of blacks' self-imposed
segregation and the administration's acquiescence to
that segregation.
Of
course, you'll never hear that perspective voiced by
President Casteen or members of his
administration. The narrative embraced by black student
leaders
and the white liberals who run the University of
Virginia is this: The seven incidents of August 2005
reflect omnipresent forces of bigotry that still
permeate society -- forces that must be combated with
ceaseless vigilance. That
narrative, too, is a big part of the problem.
Some
of the incidents were racially motivated,
reflecting lingering traces of racism in Virginia. But
the administration's response magnified black students'
sense of grievance all out of proportion to the true
significance to the events, feeding the students' sense of
alienation and reinforcing their tendency to disengage
from the white community. In the echo chamber of the
liberal ivory tower, no one had a chance to present an
alternative narrative. Proof of omnipresent racism is
not needed. It is simply assumed.
The
consequences are terrible, both for the students and the
university. The overreaction to a handful of racial
epithets reinforces the belief among blacks that
American society is far more hostile to them than, in
fact, it is. The sense of victimization discourages many
from achieving their full potential as adults. For UVa,
the reign of hysteria unfairly stigmatizes the
university as hostile to blacks and undermines the goals
of making minorities feel more comfortable and accepted
there. As bad as they were, the racial slurs are not the
important story here. The story is the reaction to them.
What we have seen in Charlottesville says far more about
what is wrong with liberalism on the American campus
than what is wrong with America.
One
must read the accounts in UVa publications to understand
the parallel universe that exists in Charlottesville. As
reported by the University News Services, President
Casteen told a special diversity committee of the Board
of Visitors that "the evidence doesn't reveal who
is committing the abusive acts, but they are obviously
intended to intimidate and isolate individuals, and take
away their sense of security." On another occasion,
Casteen termed the incidents as "vicious,
deliberate and secretive efforts to insult and abuse
members of this community (my italics)."
Don't
panic!!! President Casteen appeals to students to
"stay calm and rational -- even though racial incidents "threaten a core freedom -- the
right to move safely in our community and to have a
sense of belonging."
Those
are strong words, but they are diplomatic compared to
the sentiments expressed by others. Said Patricia M.
Lampkin, vice president and chief student affairs
officer: "We believe that the individuals
responsible for these incidents represent a small group
of perpetrators who somehow find satisfaction in
instilling fear and spreading hatred (my
italics)."
The
U.Va. Alumni Association offered a $5,000 award for
information leading to the arrest and conviction of any
person or persons who have "engaged in racial
acts of vandalism, threats or other criminal misconduct (my
italics)."
"Racism
and intolerance have no place at U.Va," declared
Edward L. Ayers, dean of the College of Arts &
Sciences, insinuating that the acts originated from
within the student body. Likewise, Carl
Zeithaml, dean of the McIntire School of Commerce,
decried the violation of the university's
"community of trust."
There
was this from Claire N. Kaplan, director, sexual and
domestic violence services at the U.Va. Women's Center:
"These incidents of racial and homophobic
harassment illustrate how different oppressions are
rooted in the same desperate grab for power and
control by the forces of intolerance (my italics)."
And
then there was this from Dorothe Back and Deandra
Little, assistant professors with the Teaching Resource
Center: "We feel ashamed when we talk to new
faculty or incoming students who come to U.Va. expecting
a vibrant intellectual community and instead are greeted
with unenlightened racism. It is one thing to express a
difference of opinion publicly and respectfully; it is
quite another to display hatred anonymously toward
people of a different skin color. Such actions silence
dialogue and impede learning."
In
sum, the university administration joined with many
black students in perpetuating the notion that
African-Americans were victims of pervasive racism and
intolerance that emanated from within the university
itself. Although Houston G. Wood, chair of the Faculty
Senate conceded that he didn't know if the instigators
of the incidents were students, he concluded nonetheless
that, "We must accept the possibility that
some of our students have never been exposed to role
models who promote acceptance of all people, regardless
of race, color or religion."
No
wonder black students were hunkering down and bracing
for more abuse. Their white professors and
administrators provided vivid confirmation of their
worst fears -- that the white student sitting next to
them in class might well be an unrepentant racist!
It
would be instructive at this point to review the list of
racial incidents -- the "unprecedented racial
terrorism acts," as African-American Affairs Dean
Turner put it -- that plunged black students into a
state of fear and the administration into an orgy of
recriminations against the ubiquitous but furtive racists.
According
to a University News Services article by Dan Heuchert,
the opening of fall semester was marred by "at
least seven incidents of harassment aimed at
African-American students." As of Sept. 7, Heuchert
cited the following incidents reported to the University
Police (and I quote directly from the University News
Services):
-
On
Aug. 27, a student of color reported being denied
entry into a Sigma Nu fraternity party until other
black members of the fraternity arrived. Later at
the event, she charged that a white female poured a
cupful of beer down her back and then
mock-apologized while pretending to be drunk. The
same student reported that earlier in the week, a
beer had been thrown at her as she walked along
McCormick
Road.
-
On
Sept. 3, University Police arrested student Darren
Thomas Tully, 19, and charged him with underage
possession of alcohol after a fellow student
observed him removing pro-racial tolerance flyers
from the doors of Lawn rooms. Police did not
immediately link him to any of the other incidents.
As
best I can tell from perusing the University News
Services and searching the Cavalier Daily
archives, that was the last of the incidents. Let us
examine each of these in turn.
By
way of preface, I would note that each of these descriptions
reflect raw reports of incidents to the police, not a
careful and judicious appraisal of what actually
happened. No one has investigated "the other side of the
story" to verify that the episodes occurred as
reported, whether the perpetrators were responding to
some perceived provocation, or whether the actions
sprang from a racist mindset, as was immediately
assumed. Like the university administration, I will
accept these reports as accurate accounts of what
actually transpired.
The
first three incidents unquestionably constituted incidents of
racial harassment: white males hurling racial slurs at
black students. From the perspective of the person being
subjected to such taunts, the precise identity of the
insults matters little: Abuse is abuse. But from the
perspective of the larger issues raised by the Casteen administration, the identities of the verbal
assailants matters very much. There is no evidence that
university students committed either offense. Indeed,
the fact that the Alderman Road incident involved two
males in a pickup truck suggests that the trouble makers
might
well have been townies.
In
none of the material that I have read did anyone suggest the
possibility that "town/gown" animosities might
have played a role. Such an interpretation does not fit
the dominant narrative of a pervasive and
undifferentiated hostility from unreconstructed members
of the student body itself. I find that oversight
remarkable because town/gown tensions certainly existed
when I was a student. I well remember how students
labeled poor, working-class whites as "Shifflets,"
a pejorative for a common surname among the whites
dispossessed from their mountain farms during
the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway decades
before. Townies returned the students' arrogance with resentment. An acquaintance of mine appeared in German
class one day with a broken nose -- inflicted,
unprovoked, by a couple of white guys in a pickup truck
while he was jogging along a country road. Stories of
less violent incidents routinely circulated, I recall,
at the beginning of every fall semester.
As
an aside, it
would be interesting to study the attitudes of local
white working class males today, given the degree to
which affirmative action, racial preferences and the
emphasis on diversity have become institutionalized
since I was a student. In this context, a New York
Times interview of Casteen published this May was
revealing:
"The
system makes a false promise to students," said [Casteen],
himself the son of a Virginia shipyard worker. Colleges
... present themselves as meritocracies in which
academic ability and hard work are always rewarded. In
fact, he said, many working-class students face
obstacles they cannot overcome on their own. ...
No flagship state university has a smaller
proportion of low-income students than Virginia. Just 8
percent of undergraduates last year came from families
in the bottom half of the income distribution, down from
11 percent a decade ago. That change sneaked up on him,
Mr. Casteen said, and he has spent a good part of the
last year trying to prevent it from becoming part of his
legacy. ...
I
wouldn't imagine that any Charlottesville
"townies" are intimately acquainted with
Casteen's record of emphasizing "diversity"
over affordability. But it would not surprise me if many
working class whites in Charlottesville perceive the
deck as stacked against them in favor of blacks on
account of their race and in favor of rich, white
"legacies" on account of their influence.
Hurling the "N" word against black students
can fairly be described as an act of racism, but Casteen
is reckless and premature in characterizing the
incidents as "vicious, deliberate and
secretive" as opposed to being spontaneous
outbursts of resentment by the economically marginalized
and politically powerless. And there is absolutely no evidence
to suggest that yelling incidents reflect the temper of the white student population
generally.
The
fourth bullet above describes an incident that
might legitimately be called an act of racial
harassment that originated from a UVa student. But the
description of the event is dissatisfyingly vague. What
was the racial slur? What else, if anything, did the
birthday card say? Was it, in fact, the black student's
birthday, a possible indicator that she was personally
known to the person who left the card? Bottom line: Was the insult personal, based upon some previous
encounter, or anonymous? The UVa report does not say.
Arguably, the use of racial epithets is racist either
way, but it is dangerous to draw conclusions regarding
the broader significance of the episode without knowing
more about it.
The
fifth report is especially revealing because it
suggests that, after the earlier incidents, black
students had become highly sensitive to the prospect of
additional affronts -- indeed, that they might be
reading racial animosity into encounters where no such animosity
existed. While the young woman at the Sigma Nu
fraternity party interpreted her disagreements as
being racially inspired, the evidence from the police
report lends itself to more than one interpretation.
Look
at the details of the account: A young black woman shows
up at a fraternity party. Her black friends are not yet
there so she is denied admittance until they arrive --
at which point, apparently, she is admitted. The
non-racial interpretation of the episode is that the
brothers of Sigma Nu denied her admittance because they
did not know her, not because she was black. (If the
frat brothers of Sigma Nu were racist, they weren't
so racist as to exclude blacks from membership in
the fraternity!)
But
that wasn't the end of the story. A white student later poured
beer down the black student's back "while
pretending to be drunk." Unless Sigma Nu has
changed in the 30 years since I've attended UVa, there
was a very good chance that the white woman was drunk!
Is it possible that the black woman's perception of the
beer-spilling incident was colored by her own
consumption of alcohol and her preconceived notion that
blacks were experiencing a wave of racial hostility? I
don't pretend to know the answer. All I can say for
certain is that the university
administration, through the medium of the University
News Service, repeated the young black woman's report
without skepticism. Why? Because, I believe, it confirmed the pre-existing
narrative of pervasive racism.
In
the sixth incident, a Lawn resident reported that
someone wrote the message "Nigger/I hate
Jesus" on the dry-erase board outside of his room.
No question: "Nigger" is a racial slur. But
what was the significance of the remark? Why did someone
couple a racial epithet with anti-Christian invective?
Was the provocateur an atheist racist? Alternatively,
was he equating those who hated blacks with those who
hated Jesus? Or, just as possibly, was the author of the
insult drunk and incoherent? We can't possibly get into
the mind of the scribbler, but the administration infers
a racist motivation and lumps the incident with others
as part of a deliberate effort to intimidate black
students.
The
final episode reflects as much upon the university
administration as the perpetrator of the act. No one
even claimed that Mr. Darren Thomas Tully said or wrote
anything offensive. His offenses consisted of the underage
possession of alcohol and the removal of pro-racial
tolerance flyers from the doors on the Lawn. Based on
the police report, what do we know about Mr. Tully's
motivations in removing the flyers? Nothing. Black
students and the university administration assume
that he was moved by racial animus. The possibility that
Mr. Tully might have objected on philosophical or
political grounds to the tenor of the flyers apparently
has not been considered. There is no indication in what
I have read that anyone bothered to question Mr. Tully
about his motivations. If they did, no one has gone
public with his answers. Why bother when whites can be
presumed guilty of racism?
There
you have it. Three incidents of people yelling racial slurs. An
episode in which a racial slur was written on a birthday
card. A case of a white woman at a fraternity party
pouring beer down the back of a black woman. An event in
which the "N" word was scrawled on a tablet,
along with the words, "I hate Jesus." And a
19-year-old white kid pulling down tolerance flyers.
Out
of 1,700 black students at UVa in a student body of
19,600, out of the countless thousands of interactions
between whites and blacks every day, those are the
"unprecedented racial terrorism acts" reported
to the university police. That's the wave of vicious
hatred that leaves black students feeling cowed and
intimidated.
I
see two things going on here. First, several real
racist incidents did occur. Yes, sad to say, racism is a
vestigial element of our society. It may be totally
marginalized, unable to express itself except furtively
and anonymously, but it still exists. Most Americans look forward to
the day when racism disappears from the face of the
earth.
Second,
a paired phenomenon far more widespread and debilitating feeds upon and magnifies the real racism:
black victimization and white liberal race-mongering.
Victimhood is one of the defining cultural traits of
black America today, and it holds blacks back by
instilling the belief that they can't possibly succeed
in the face of an implacably racist white establishment.
Such an attitude breeds fatalism and saps initiative
among America's most highly educated blacks, the very
individuals who should be spearheading black
achievement. Fortunately, upon departing the university,
most blacks find that the world isn't nearly as hostile
as it was portrayed. Many go on to achieve great things.
I'm
frustrated to see blacks embrace victimhood because I am
certain it hurts them. But I can understand the reasons
why they do so. Blacks have been victims. They were
brought to this country as slaves, and then they were
subjected to nearly a century of Jim Crow. I can
understand the temptation of blacks on campus, whether
at UVa or anywhere else, to hang together for strength
and comfort. While I'm unsympathetic to those who would
ostracize their fellows for associating with whites,
I can understand why blacks feel the need for
solidarity.
What
I can't understand, and find unforgivable, is white race
mongering. White liberals require black
"victims" to maintain their sense of moral
superiority over white conservatives and confirm their
world view of a society ridden by racism, sexism and
homophobia. That, to my mind,
explains the hysterical overreaction on the part of the
Casteen administration to the real but ultimately
harmless incidents of racism. I find it extraordinary
that the administration would publicize the seven reported
incidents without making any effort to ascertain their
validity. The white race is presumed guilty without the
tedious necessity of a trial.
Particularly egregious
was the decision to
publish on the university's website the name of a
19-year-old student charged with underage possession of
alcohol along with the implication, in a racially
charged atmosphere, that he was engaging in
racist behavior. Perhaps young Tully is a racist
and a bigot. I don't know. But the Casteen administration offered no proof
whatsoever that he is, and by publicizing his name, it
has subjected him to potential ridicule and retaliation
by other students.
The administration's reaction should
come as no surprise, however, to anyone who
has been paying attention to the state of race relations
at UVa. President Casteen has presided over the erection
of a separate-but-equal black apparatus within the
university: special black admittance policies, black
pre-school programs, black parental events, a black
student union, black fraternities and sororities,
informal black dorms -- even an informal black bus stop
-- and
intense peer pressure on black students not to get too
friendly with whites. In the "diversity" that
Casteen champions, blacks and whites may live and attend
classes side by side, but they interact very little. No
wonder blacks find it so easy to believe the worst of
whites.
Compounding
the systemic failure of its racial policies, the Casteen
administration made no effort when the incidents of
August occurred to find the truth, much less to dampen
the rising hysteria. Rather, white administrators
stumbled over themselves to express solidarity with
black victims in the face of the evil but unidentifiable
racists. In doing
so, President Casteen not only did a disservice to UVa's
1,700 black students, unnecessarily intensifying their
fears and alienation, he did inestimable damage to the
reputation of the university itself.
While it may be too much to ask
Casteen, as isolated as he is in his ivory tower, to mend
his ways, it is not too much to ask of the university's
trustees, who presumably are tethered to the
real world, to hold him accountable for what he does.
--
October 3, 2005
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