Earlier this month, protests about race erupted at several American colleges. The uproar began at the University of Missouri, where the chancellor and president resigned over their responses to racially charged harassment.
Meanwhile at Yale, an official email about avoiding racist Halloween costumes, such as blackface, inspired one faculty member’s response asking for “free speech and the ability to tolerate offense.”
The initial upheaval in Columbia and New Haven sparked tensions elsewhere. Someone posted anonymous online threats towards students at historically black Howard University, and protests followed last week on campuses at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and nearly two dozen others.
These protests reflect the recent grassroots activism around the #BlackLivesMatter movement, but the racial tensions they attempt to ad are nothing new. For decades, white administrators and students themselves have ignored or downplayed the concerns of people of color regarding the racial climate on campus.
I know because I was one of them…
I’m so pleased to be over at Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics blog with my own story of my fitful awakening to the realities of race in America. Won’t you join me there?
Image credit: Nazareth College / Flickr
Easy faith is intentional
[…] the friendship part. Back in college, I realized that Black students were left out of my campus parachurch ministry through some unconscious but no less troubling biases. That grieved me. I talked about my grief […]