A racial mobilization year

As one of the very few graduate students of color on the campus, I decided to write my first column on race and racism at IU and in the Bloomington community. \nMost of you who are reading this are undoubtedly looking forward to the academic year and the opportunities this University presents for intellectual growth and personal achievement. You will no doubt find a place for yourself, whether in sports; music; the theater; conservative, liberal or radical organizations; fraternities or sororities.\nNew and returning students will also be exposed to varied cultures and ideas at different points of the year, such as Black History Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and Latino Heritage Month. You will also probably attend lots of parties where you can dance to hip hop and rap music. But if you are an astute observer, you will look around and notice that there are no students of color in attendance (except, of course, for one or two tokens). Finally, you will attend classes of 50, 100, perhaps 200 students, where that same observer may note that two or three Blacks and one Asian American sit in the room, doing their best to look and feel normal in a psychologically troubling environment.\nDoes IU's lack of diversity trouble you? I suspect that your answer depends on your politics. No matter. Whether conservative or liberal, you will find (if you look hard enough) that many whites on this campus are divided in their talk but united in their walk.\nWhat do I mean? Many departments, offices and student groups accept the rhetoric of racial inclusion but fail to fully interrogate what that means. I am not speaking here in favor of minority recruitment, although that is a pressing issue that needs to be addressed. I mean the failure of IU students, faculty, staff and administrators to internally examine how they function as protective agents of "whiteness" in covert and subconscious ways. \nHow does our campus and system of education succeed in reinforcing white assumptions? Is the IU and Bloomington community really addressing structural racism by recognizing Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, by having the largest collection of Asian restaurants in Southern Indiana, and by having professors and graduate students write impressive and jargon-filled books and articles on race in America? Or is IU simply talking the talk?\nWhat is needed on campus is a Racial Mobilization Year. The purpose of a Racial Mobilization Year would be to investigate how white privilege is maintained to the detriment of nonwhite members of the community and how the University can address the issue of structural racism in America. \nThree specific goals in mind for the year would be: \n1) Read to understand why Blacks rioted in Cincinnati last April and why it will happen again. Read the new studies on how whiteness is created and reproduced in this peculiar society of ours.\n2) Question why your department, your office, your student organization and your class have few faces of color. Do not be afraid to scrutinize your own assumptions and feelings and ask how privileged it is to be a white American.\n3) Act on the results of your reading and analysis. Form groups in your organization, department or office to analyze how white privilege is maintained in your setting. To truly change this University and this society, white Americans will have to attack the problem among themselves and within their own institutions.\nIn pursuing these limited goals, many students will face hostility, resentment and anger from others and yourselves. But perhaps most of all, you will face indifference because white Americans do not have to think about or deal with race in their daily lives. \nNevertheless, overcoming white privilege is a lifelong process: Just because you see the light once doesn't mean your eyes will always be open. Like a chronic disease, white Americans will have to be constantly aware of their role in preserving the power of whiteness in their public and private lives. Once you are vigilant, you will be able to write on this subject with far more eloquence than I have.