On Campuses, Students Confront A Growing Racial Divide Essay, Research Paper

On Campuses, Students Confront a Growing Racial Divide

Michael Peloso

February 12, 1997

Sociology 101

In the article, ?On Campuses, Srudents Confront a Growing Racial Divide,

it discusses the racial issues that occur on college campuses and nationwide

racism like the O.J. Simpson trial or the Million Man March.

For example, when the verdict for the O.J. Simpson trial came out, a

student or a group of students at USC made a flyer that read, ?I need to alert

all the whites that the niggers are taking over. Take up arms and defend

yourselves, my brothers.? This quote is discrimination and it should not happen.

When the verdict came out for the trial, I am sure not all African-Americans

were happy that O.J. Simplon was free. And I am sure that all white people were

not mad that he was free. What that student or group of students did was

prefudice, he assumed that all black people are against him/her and his/her ?

brothers.? That is not true.

On campus at Ohio State I have seen discrimination quite often. White

people walking by a group of black people and saying a racial slur or two

towards them, but not loud enough that they would hear it. Or, I have seen the

same thing vise-versa.

Institutional racism plays a big role on campus. One example is at the

Metropolitan Institution of Technology where a group of African Americans took

over three dormitory floors and named it ?chocolate city.? It is clear when an

ethnic group of any kind says that their group can live there and nobody else,

that is Institutional racism.

One thing that is being done about racism and more specific,

institutional racism, is the leniency of the Scholastic Aptitude Test(SAT). It

is said that the SAT is discriminative against minorities. Critics say that the

SAT assumes the knowlege of the middle class white culture.