Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!auvm!BROWNVM!MOYE From: MOYE@BROWNVM.BITNET (Laura Moye) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics Subject: Re: Racial Phobia? Message-ID: <90042.1745.MOYE@BROWNVM> Date: 11 Feb 90 17:45:54 GMT Sender: Forum for the Discussion of Politics Reply-To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics Lines: 55 Approved: NETNEWS@AUVM Gateway M. Miller wrote on Sat, 10 Feb 90: > >Nonsense. As Laura would realize, if she read the papers carefully, >is that exactly the OPPOSITE happened here in Providence. A few racist >(anti-black, as well as anti-gay) posters appeared in a dorm, and it >immediately became a major incident. Students marched, administrators >apologized, and media beat the drum of racism on the campus. And what you might realize, if you talked to a few more people, is that racist attacks had been happening all year on campus! In the fall of 1988, a black man was beat up by a bouncer at the Underground (if you want to get into an argument about this event, please write me privately), an Asian-American student was beat up by white college boys in front of Hospital Trust bank during the day. On the sidewalk. This wasn't reported. People of color are harassed daily by people who are considered "respectable" citizens. Especially, I"m sorry to say, by the Police, who felt that the rapes of Fall 1988 and the assaults of Fall 1989 gave them license to ask for the id of any man of color who was on campus. I've yet to see white men habitually stopped and asked for ID as if they didn't belong here. Or even, as also happened, taken out of the ECDC and thrown into the back of a Brown Police and Security car, all while two friends are vouching for your whereabouts and your integrity. A lot of people have wondered why the incident last fall got so much notice when there had been like incidents happening on campus all year. All I can guess is that it was the mention of the KKK and reference to "former" times at Brown that got everyone so pissed off. And as well, the mention of the KKK lets all the "self-respecting" whites blame racism on others, who wear white sheets, and are outsiders to this bastion of liberalism and equality. Always an easier task when trouble can be blamed on outsiders... > Eventually, the administration was persuaded to brand these violent >attacks as racist, and condemn them, too. So, in a sense, even-handedness >has prevailed. However, what Ms. Moye misses, in her rush to accuse >every non-minority institution of slighting violence against minorities, Look, M. Miller, I'm in no rush, I'm just trying to talk about a daily experience of alienation that just isn't experienced by white people. Sometimes that alienation accelerates into discrimination and then into violence. If you are white, this is something unusual. In larger terms, this means that attacks by people of color against whites are more likely to be "newsworthy" (for all the good reasons of raising paranoia that you mention) than attacks of whites against people of color. As long as those attacks are "within reason." You know, you can't claim to represent the KKK or anything. As for your claim about last semesters' events, I think David did a good job of responding, so I won't. --l"Free Nelson Mandela"m "I love it when a political song becomes obsolete."