<p>"UVA is a great state school, but I will not allow my son to attend"</p>
<p>So you think that UVA would be worse than other schools, well your loss is someone else's gain.</p>
<p>It is possible that whoever wrote "I will not allow my son to attend" is a minority. I live in the Northeast in an urban environment, and when we travel down South (anywhere South of Washington,DC), I do notice more racial segregation and racial comments, fewer bi-racial familes walking around, while they are common where I live. We are Caucasian but I do notice the difference. This is not to say that most people are this way - the huge majority most likely are not - but if a student is deciding on a school the student has to deal with his or her own comfort level.
The same is true for other minorities - gay students may choose one school over another because they will feel less self-conscious and more accepted.
Certainly minority kids and their parents should be comfotable about their school choice, and if this means finding a school that is more racially integrated, then why not? That doesn't mean everyone at UVA is a bigot by any means.</p>
<p>I guess that some folks resent hearing about any complaints or antagonistic conduct when it comes to race relations in the U.S. Well, your exasperation, frustration, minimalization doesn't mean that the hostility and bad acts didn't happen. The fact is, many students who are the objects of such behavior ignore it and never report it. Do you understand that, Joev? And yes, it's not limited to southern schools, but again lets not use that fact to minimize the events at U of Virginia. And let's please remember that most southern schools have a unique history of discrimination that is relatively recent. I said relatively!!! That is, many white students who rioted on campus to oppose integration (like Senator Trent Lott at Ole Miss, for example) are quite alive and well today. Let no one forget that the State of Virginia was the epicenture of the segregationist stand when it came to education.</p>
<p>I am not commenting to demean the U of Virginia today. It appears that the administration is making strong statements (and hopefully strong efforts) to rid the UVA community of a repugnant and possibly violent element.</p>
<p>
Racism is always going to be here. In colleges, high schools, places of employment, etc. I believe that not reporting it might actually be better for minimizing acts of racism. When the media (school newspaper) reports that some black girl was called the n-word, they report it and it gets the black student body in an uproar, and makes racial relations on campus tense for both blacks and whites. Then bored students on other campuses here about this and copycat "crimes" are committed, making it seem that black students are victims of racism, when in reality they are victims of boredom/practical jokers. People get called racial slurs every day on every campus in the nation. Someone who gets called a racial slur should just laugh it off and keep walking. Usually people who do this sort of thing stop if they know it doesn't really bother you. My buddy Jeremy who went to KSU with me was all in an uproar about black students being harassed, and I asked him what happened, some nooses were left around black students dorms, some students were called the n-word, etc. He was part of black united students, and they were going to the adminsitration to ask that something be done about it, I told him that administration really could do nothing about that, that the best situation was to just be the bigger person and let it go. I don't know what happened with the situation, but if students had more work to do, they wouldn't be so concerned with such BS as racism.</p>
<p>So what about when the lynch mob comes for your friend?</p>
<p>Where do we draw the line and say, "okay, now we take action?"</p>
<p>I am not saying you don't punish the people who were responsible for the intimidation, but why set a whole campus ablaze over the results of a few idiots. Maybe some of these things against these women could have been done by black ex boyfriends, or black guys they turned down for a date just to mess with them. I am convinced this is more a problem with boredom than with racism.</p>
<p>That's entirely possible, but I have to wonder how much we can just attribute to boredom. Or rather, how much we can afford to attribute to racism.</p>
<p>It's a double-edged sword, because if you keep it hush-hush, it might not discourage future stupidity. If you are loud about it, you might cause an uproar like this time.</p>
<p>APSDAD - have to disagree with your perspective. If UVa is the right place for your son, all factors considered, then he should go. The negative acts of a few knuckleheads shouldn't sway that decision. There are a small minority of racist and intolerant people everywhere, and dealing with them is part of life. Yes, I am not African American, so it may be the case I can't personally identify with these kinds of slurs (but being Jewish, have had to deal with similar ones from time to time), but there is something bothersome about letting the conduct of a small bunch of idiots (who indeed, may not be students) control an important life decision doesn't make sense to me. The vast majority of Uva students are tolerant and decent people - like most anywhere else - and there is no hermetically sealed environment anywhere. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong - UVa may not have the right kind of culture or programs for your son - but that decision should be one that stands on its own.</p>
<p>I reluctantly find myself agreeing with Joev here; there will always be a few knuckleheads at HWC's (historically white colleges); better to ignore them when it doesn't involve life or limb. Here's a story from a few years ago: Jesse Jackson's daughter, as I recall, applied to Harvard. During an alumni interview, she was asked what she perceived as an insulting question about her father. Incensed, she later turned down an offer from Harvard and went to Howard instead. That's what I call letting other people's stupidity control your life.</p>
<p>Don't blame the press - the University itself perceived this as a problem, and to their credit made it public and is trying to stop it. Good for them. It is up to the press to report the news - and the University going public is news. You do not want to live in a society where things are shoved under the table and the news is not allowed to report them.
Most people know what schools they feel comfortable with, so if one poster doesn't feel comfortable having his son at a certain school, so what? If he can get into UVA, there are a lot of other great schools he can get into as well that he might ike better. UVA is a great school, but not for everybody. No school is for everybody.</p>
<p>African-American students cannot live in the US without encountering racism. They cannot let each incident at each school rule out a college- soon there would be nowhere left. UVA has a relatively high proportion of AA students for a top university, and it is a great financial deal for Va residents. Students should look at the campus culture closely to decide whether they would feel comfortable there. One incident, particularly when there is such a strong reaction from the administration and students, should not lead one to drop UVA from a college list.</p>
<p>I'm not black, but if I were I wouldn't send my child to any college which had recently reported racist incidents. Maybe it could happen anywhere, but if you can minimise the likelihood of it happening, why wouldn't you? There are surely enough possible colleges for any given applicant that you can exclude one or two without it being a big deal.</p>
<p>I am not here to defend UVA, I have never been there. Just saying that it is academically a terrific school, and an even more terrific deal for in state students. It has a high AA enrollment and a good graduation rate. Every college has racial incidents. Some attract more attention than others. Sometimes the attention is because the administration, the faculty, the students, or all of the above react strongly. Unfortunately no AA student is going to find a school outside of the HBCU world at which this sort of thing does not occur. So they need to look carefully at the culture, ask whether this is typical, or an isolated incident, and consider the racial climate among other factors.</p>