Oberlin's President Says No

Parents Forum
41

Sounds very much like the town of Oberlin when I attended in the '90s. I myself experienced plenty of drive-by racist taunts and even an attempt to pick a fight with me when I responded in an on-par manner with a one-fingered NY salute during my undergrad years at Oberlin.

However, your criticism of the Swat student is really a form of blaming the victim as in this situation, while the racist taunters may be blue-collar and thus, lower SES than many Swat students…they are more privileged in the racial and by virtue of being the majority in the town sense compared with the African-American student and your comment ignores that. In the case of the taunt…the fact she’s a student at one of the most elite colleges in the nation had no bearing as it conferred no protection from experiencing that taunt…or the fear the taunt was a prelude to something worse like a violent assault…

Moreover, we don’t know if the African-American student interviewed is from a higher SES family or if she, like yours truly, was a FA/scholarship kid from a low-income background even less SES privileged than the rural White blue-collar working class often brought up by certain individuals/groups as red herring diversion when issues of racism against URMs and other non-White groups are being discussed.

Incidentally, one of my clients happens to be a Swat graduate from the '80s from a working-class Jewish family and he recounted how the blue-collar locals reminded him very much of the White Long-Islanders who used to drive in/take the LIRR into NYC and harass him and others for being Jewish, racial minorities, and/or perceivable poorer than they were.

Came up in a random conversation about why he hates most commercialized heavy metal music from the '70s and early '80s: most kids he knew who liked that kind of music were those very White Long-Islander kids who harassed him and his childhood/HS classmate friends due to their racist, anti-semitic, and ironically classist* taunts.

  • Despite being blue-collar and lower-SES themselves, they often viewed themselves as "superior" to lower SES NYC residents....especially if they happen to be non-White/Jewish.
42

Rural Pennsylvania seems to have a high rate of web searches for insulting terms for black people in a study about that as a proxy for hidden racism against black people. Significant parts of Ohio (where Oberlin is) also seem to have a high rate of such web searches.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/the-most-racist-places-in-america-according-to-google/ (see map)

43

Except Swarthmore isn’t even remotely “rural Pennsylvania” and it’s not even remotely like the town of Oberlin. So nice try, but you don’t know what you’re talking about if you’re categorizing Swarthmore as rural.

44

Who knew Oberlin and Swarthmore were such cesspools of racism?

45

You’re misunderstanding the point I was trying to make. I don’t diminish the pain, or even genuine FEAR, she may have felt as the victim of a racial slur, and I agree she WAS a victim in this case. I was objecting to her criticism of THE COLLEGE for not doing more to protect her and other students of color against such attacks. What exactly can they do, aside from forbid their students from leaving campus or instructing them on the, er, eccentricities of the local population? (Would love to be a fly on the wall of that lecture.)

BTW, Swarthmore’s campus, which includes a world-class arboretum, is pretty self-contained within an already fairly secluded, upper-middle-class borough. I grew up on the other side of the tracks (literally) just a few miles away and I had not one iota of an inkling of the magical world that existed there back then. It’s even more lush today.

There are different kinds of privilege. Race is just one of them. If a Swarthmore student doesn’t acknowledge the great PRIVILEGE they have been afforded to be attending one of the finest colleges in the world, then shame on them. (BTW, I’m not suggesting that this particular student is guilty of any such thing, just responding to @cobrat’s post.)

46

I don’t know…maybe use what influence they may have to something which may actually help students like her…like call on the local governments to investigate these and other racial incidents and prioritize them? Especially considering in the experience of some Philly area(including suburbanite) friends, many local governments and LEOs give low prioritization* or even ignore reports of such incidents.

  • Many White suburbanite friends from the Philly area recounted the levels of racism permeate into many areas of local government agencies from their own observations and experiences of the few racial minority friends and sometimes college friends they brought him to visit the region. This sometimes extends to members of their own families. In one case, a White college classmate and his then URM girlfriend separately recounted how his parents referred to her using a racist epithet toward her which resulted in heated arguments between said classmate and his parents and ultimately, a rift resulting in no contact since which continues to this day.

** This was also the experience of many non-White and GBLTQ students subjected to such harassment and worse in Oberlin and surrounding towns back when I was an undergrad.

And again, you’re blaming the victim and ignoring the fact that attending one of the most elite colleges conferred no protection or privilege when she was subjected to racial taunts which could have lead to worse outcomes…such as a violent assault.

Especially considering you yourself acknowledged earlier that the surrounding area is populated by blue-collar Whites with strong prejudicial racist tendencies…

In this situation, the racial taunter’s privileges of being White and being part of that area’s majority trumps her seeming privilege of attending one of the most elite colleges in the country.

Not to mention it’s very possible she’s a FA/scholarship student from as low or less privileged SES background than the White blue collar community with racist prejudicial tendencies you mentioned. Something which parallels the experience my 80’s era Swat grad client had as a student from a NYC working-class Jewish background with that very community to the point he felt there were strong parallels with the White Long-Islanders who would harass him and his friends for being Jewish, non-White, and/or “inferior” to them on the basis of perceived SES.

47

@EarlvanDorn No, but what I’m telling you is, it totally is.

[Spelling success in APA style
[url=Black and white: Why capitalization matters - Columbia Journalism Review]Columbia Journalism Report](http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/03/spelling-success-in-apa-style.html)
[Grammarphobia - references other big style guides like Chicago](http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2011/01/black-capitalize.html)

It’s not universally done and publications vary on what they do, but it’s not obscure or a sign of ignorance either. It’s just that people should be consistent - if they capitalize one race they should capitalize them all.

Also…no, don’t use Negro. African American would be what you’re looking for.

48

yes, cobrat, Long Islanders are notorious for their hostility to Jews. Lol.

49

Oberlin is filled with in bred hick white racists, so many in fact that it is sometimes necessary to invent acts of racism (or rape, whatever it takes) to bring light to the problem.

Speaking as someone who grew up fifteen minutes north of the campus and who still spends a fair amount of time in the area, the actual problems that exist at Oberlin are between the predominantly white and well off “college people” and the predominantly African American and Puerto Rican working and lower class townies.

All that said, the college’s history of openness to women and minorities is real, and part of the fabric of the place. I don’t know what the campus is like today in this age of micro aggressions and safe spaces, but for years the school actually was a very open and inclusive place.

50

<<<
As bad as I felt for her, I did wonder out loud if she had ANY idea that the lovely little borough of Swarthmore, which is just a 30-minute train ride from Philly, is set amidst a very blue-collar, white working-class area, where there has always been, and continues to be, a fair amount of prejudice and racism, and where the vast majority of students don’t have a prayer of ever attending a school as posh and elite as Swarthmore.
<<<

Town and Gown issues will crop up in towns where few locals can qualify for attendance. There’s not much a college can besides admitting more locals. College/Community outreach programs can just seem patronizing.

51

The college yes. The town, not always.

Unless there was a major demographic shift since I attended, the vast majority of the local town residents in the town of Oberlin and surrounding towns aren’t African-American and Puerto Rican.

Especially considering UCBalumnus’ stats in post #39 shows that 70% of Oberlin’s population in 2014 are non-Hispanic White.

Most of the town-gown conflicts were between the mostly blue collar White town local residents who had resentments for the radical-lefty political orientation of the vast majority of students, visibly greater presence of URMs/racial minorities like yours truly even though we made up only around 26% of the student body, and perceptions based on perceptions shared by many Obies that a sizable portion of our student body are GBLTQ* along with the resentments of the perception all Oberlin students were well-off** and many Oberlin students who tended to viewed the town residents as backward racist homophobic and in the case of males extremely sexist right-wing nutcases based on crappy experiences during interactions with each other.

While not every town resident fit the stereotypical perception many Oberlin students during my undergrad years held, their perception wasn’t fabricated from thin air or a few isolated incidents based on my own experiences and observations as an undergrad living and going about that town. Especially considering I did go out of my way to befriend and interact with town residents not only because I like meeting new people, but also as part of some volunteering efforts and one of my part-time jobs fixing computers.

In short, town-gown relations were widely regarded as quite poor by both the local town residents and most Obies during my undergrad years.

  • During undergrad, most Oberlin classmates estimated as many as 1/3 of the Oberlin student body may have been GBLTQ.

** Despite the fact there were certainly exceptions like scholarship/FA students of which I was a member.

Oberlin has been trying to encourage more applications and admitting more locals by giving them some special consideration in admission and in FA/scholarships. Regarding the latter, I recalled one initiative where if a graduate of the town high school applied and was admitted to Oberlin, his/her tuition would be fully covered for all 4 years.

One stumbling block is precisely the fact many town resident families and the students themselves are reluctant to apply and/or attend Oberlin because part of the town-gown conflict is due to a wide fundamental gap in their political and social views in many areas. That and my impression from talking with classmates who volunteered at the local high school that most of the graduating HS seniors are looking forward to moving away from their hometown for college or permanently*.

*Much more socially and politically conservative town residents/families as opposed to a college where the campus culture/most students tend to be radically left of center even compared with nominally liberal colleges like Harvard, Brown, Reed, or even Berkeley/UC Santa Cruz.

** Mainly due to the extreme lack of jobs in the area in the '90s…especially for 4-year college graduates. In some ways, Lorain county in the '90s mirrored how a close Boston-area friend described his Western Massachusetts hometown…the vast majority of HS classmates from his town high school who went off to 4-year colleges or enlistments in the military end up permanently moving out of the area due to the depressed local job market for 4-year college grads or enlistees with in-demand technical skills picked up during vocational training in the military after basic.

52

My impression of the town and the relationship with the college in the '90s is the same as cobrat’s. I spent several weeks surreptitiously living with my then-boyfriend in East Hall and Asia House across the '95-'97 school years.

53

Their demands for the changes in the Jazz Department look great on paper, but the students have neglected to factor in the location of the school. Jazz musicians depend heavily upon “gigging” and the ones that I know, the professors too, would not be content to park themselves in rural Ohio, teaching kids during the day with nowhere to go at night and far from a vibrant jazz scene on the weekends.
As with a lot of their demands, the idea is admirable, it’s the execution that is impossible and the “Demand” makes it so no one wants to listen to them.

54

I think it probably takes about $160,000 annual income to be fullpay.

55

I love student activists. I was a student activist myself back in the day. WAY back. So, by my calculation, that’s a lot of back pay due. Hey, it took a lot of time to pass around petitions and plan protests before social media. If I can get some back pay (adjusted for inflation, and with interest, please) back from what I naively thought was an on-my-own-time questioning of the status quo (which would seem to include things like, say, paid and administrator-blessed activism), maybe my kid could afford full pay at Oberlin :slight_smile:

56

I think part of this comes from a misunderstanding some people have over what being privileged means. I’ve noticed that a lot of people, when told they have white privilege or male privilege, lash back that they have many difficulties in their lives, and cannot possibly be privileged. This presumes priviledge to be a personal status one either has or does not have. Naturally, this isn’t the case. As you point out, you can be privileged in one way but disadvantaged in another. Pretty much everybody is. I got plenty of disadvantages in life. I have Aspergers and ADHD, I have parents who had no business raising an autistic child, if I left college housing now I wouldn’t have a home to go to, I’m not sure I can afford to keep living near my college when I do have to leave college housing, and I’m transgendered in a family that doesn’t approve of that. I’m still pretty privileged. I’m white so I get that laundry list of privileges, people percieve me as male so I get away with my lack of bubbliness and loner tendencies without being percieved as an ice queen and I don’t get a lot of sexual harassment or objectification, the Feds and California paid for my first two years of college and half of university; then loaned me the rest, I get my healthcare for free, I live in a city where being LGBT is statistically very unlikely to get you a hate crime, and so on. To say that I am not privileged is very incorrect, but I’m not exactly free of worries in life. Yes, the student in question is immensly privileged to go to such a school, but that has zilch to do with whether or not she has racial privilege.

57

A lot of of those demands were pretty dumb, but this one isn’t a bad idea. We have this exact program at my university, and it’s been a success.

58

Some major hurdles to implementing this in practice:

Parental outrage/concern over potential safety issues for their students…however real or imagined they may be. Especially if a critical mass of such parents are well-off enough to be full-pay as is the case at Oberlin and many other respectable/elite private colleges.

Just look at the Gina Grant case and reactions from Harvard and Columbia parents/alums which ultimately caused both universities to rescind their acceptances despite the fact the murder took place when she was 14 and was heavily influenced by the fact the murdered parent was known to be an alcoholic and violently abusive towards her. Factors which was substantiated by her sister.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Grant_college_admissions_controversy

There’s also the factor most prisoners are likely to have serious issues meeting Oberlin’s academic requirements due to the high likelihood their K-12 educations may have been inadequate or too spotty to provide a minimum level of academic preparation for admission and more importantly, a reasonable chance of succeeding once admitted.

59

Finally - someone with a backbone.

60

Well, I lived in the area way before @cobrat and @Hanna were on campus. Honestly it shocks me that the non college population of the town is 70/30white, but it is what it is. My perception is based primarily on what i perceive when going in and out for my daughter’s summer theater performances, what I recall from Oberlin high school, the kids I knew from the area, and the fact that the town sits so close to Lorain and Elyria, which have large African American and Puerto Rican communities. Certainly the one square mile around rt58 & 511 is very white. Either way, the idea that Oberlin is an oasis of diversity in the midst of lily white fly over country is a mistake. The greater area is certainly a heck of a lot more racially diverse than the college. I would be amazed if it were not much more diverse than the areas where most of the students reside as well. Certainly there do not appear to be significant race based issues going on there, or else the SJWs on campus would not have to run around painting swastikas on things like they did about a year ago.

From a townie’s perspective, the difficulties with the college are that it is populated largely by UMC kids from the coasts who look down at the locals. The school is also viewed as extremely sheltered from the community. While it is great that there are scholarships for local high school kids, etc, rarely if ever does an Oberlin prof participate in the greater community. Personally, I always thought that was weird. I think the college should have a presence on things like the board of health, or an economic round table.

The greater area started to change well before the 1990s btw. Flight began in the late 70s and accelerated into the 80s with the closure of the shipyard, steel plant and eventually one of the two ford plants. It was never a great area for professional work, but it was a solidly blue collar union democratic area. Like much of the rust belt, it is still a reliable pro union democratic voting bloc.