With the school year starting, universities are launching new programs for their Residency, Orientation, and Public Safety departments. For some schools, it's making campuses safer at night by increasing the amount of street lights. For others, it's making campuses more inclusive to the LGBT community.
For one school in Central New York, SUNY Binghamton, it is a diversity training program for Residence Assistants titled "#StopWhitePeople2016."
Pause.
Before the mobs form and start boycotting the school, it should be noted that despite this admittedly shitty title, this is a brilliant program.
The course aims to teach the Residential Department how to "take the next step in understanding diversity, [white] privilege, and the society we live in." It also trains the attendees on how to deal with racism and bigotry in an effective manner, and how to avoid inadvertent and systemic racism. They want to create an atmosphere that works for everyone, not just upper middle class white people (which is often the case at universities.) After all, due to a growing ethnic population and the successes of Affirmative Action, the amount of African American and Hispanic students entering universities is increasing drastically.
Today, more than half of the babies born in America are of color. As of 2009, 36% of the American workforce is made up of people of color. The Census Bureau projects that by 2050, 50% of the workforce will be non-white.
As the importance of higher education increase, it is becoming more vital that schools are equally open to all Americans, despite ethnicity. As of 2009, only 28% of Americans have received a four year degree. However, only 17% of African Americans and 13% of Hispanic Americans have the same level of schooling.
Those numbers are rising and they're rising fast, which means it's becoming very important for schools to be more inclusive to minority communities. This course basically tells the white majority that 1) they won't be the majority for long, 2) they don't deserve the special treatment they receive, and 3) they need to become more inclusive. The name is actually brilliant, as it has made a poignant point of irony
The backlash for the program and the negative reports seen all over the media all stem from one report: the Bing Review, the University's Conservative paper. This same paper has a bulletin board outside it's with it's personal favorite cover stories of the past - including "Feminism: Is Albright Alright?" a scathing review on women's rights on par with anything Fox News has ever said or done.
The article from the Bing Review has been swirling around the media, using slander and bigotry for a moment in the spotlight. The swarms of protests against Binghamton University have all stemmed from this one, biased report. Parents and citizens have been complaining saying that the program is "racist," "anti-white," and "leftist, Hillary Clinton, liberal bullshit." Clearly it is neither of the first two things, and the third idea doesn't make enough sense to decipher if it is or is not accurate.
The fact is, this program was built to say that those who believe any non white person is in the economic pit their in because they're lazy, those who say #AllLivesMatter when confronted with black people murdered in the streets daily, those who believe that their tax dollars should not go to help those in need, and those that believe we should Build A Wall are all idiots. It aims to teach the RA's of Binghamton how to deal with parents and students who think that their neighbor is a drug dealer because his name is Tyriq and many "suspicious figures" (other black men) come by his dorm often. The program simply aims to shut down the power and hatred that many conservative white Americans flaunt around at any possible opportunity.
And look what happened: Fox News has reported on the "Racism" of Binghamton, the school's conservative newspaper has launched a hateful article about the "white hating" program, and many white middle class parents have threatened to refuse paying their child's bill to the University. They've said implied that they, as working white people, should not be paying taxes for the state funded school to "betray them" and "favor those who aren't paying taxes."
These actions are exactly why the class is needed. This program is smart, edgy, and innovative, and it is a step in the right direction to end systemic and societal racism, even among those who refuse to listen. The name, admittedly, was not the right choice, but it did spark conversation and prove why the course was needed in the first place. White people do need to be stopped.
White people need to stop thinking that racism is over. They need to stop thinking that those who are down on their luck are their because they didn't work hard. They need to realize that the system is heavily rigged in their favor. They need to realize that of course all lives matter, but Black Lives are being extinguished at an alarming rate and that needs to stop. White people need to realize that the world doesn't revolve around them.
There are significantly more people of Asian descent in the world, and there are more Chinese and Spanish speakers than English speakers. So, really, in the eyes of the world, White, English Speaking Americans are a minority. And it's a safe assumption they'd hate being treated as one.
