<p>I went to a university in Ohio, supposedly the top ranked public, for a semester and transferred out. Initially, I had family and friends telling me to be careful going to a predominantly white school where non-white students made up about 15% of the student body. I shrugged it off because, you know, it is 2012, not 1960.
They weren’t completely wrong, though. The school had a “large” population of wealthier Chinese international students and I heard disgusting things people would say about them. It was terrible. And, being the only black girl out of my group of friends I heard some really disgusting remarks about me and black people too. “Why are black people so violent?” or “I thought I saw you today, but it was another black girl. Black people look alike.” The icing on the racist cake was on Halloween, my suitemate’s boyfriend decided to go as an ape to a party. One of his drunken friends referred to it as being “N-worded” up to my suitemate. My jaw hit the floor. In an attempt to apologize to me, he wanted to give me a banana but my suitemate talked him out of it. There are a slew of others. I could write a book. </p>
<p>This stuff wasn’t 100% why I transferred but it was a big part of it. It’s hard in situations like that especially if you are “alone” (save for a few friends here and there) in this country. I don’t think I could take it. Schools need to make more of an effort to prevent this kind of stuff. It’s not easy to report when it is verbal but stuff on the internet? Find some loophole…maybe they used university WiFi and nip it in the bud. 0 tolerance.</p>