An Aggravated Deacon

At Wake Forest University, nationally ranked 27^th, we pride ourselves on being some of the most educated students in the nation with a better work ethic than any other school because we go to “Work Forest,” yet we aren’t smart enough to work out the racial discrimination on our campus.

To be honest, sometimes I feel bad about being white and preppy. Why? Because some people on our campus make me feel that I should feel ashamed of the life that my parents gave me even though they worked day and night to give me a better life than they had growing up in rural West Virginia.

So, please tell me why I shouldn’t judge you when you judge me for drinking Starbucks and wearing my letters. I’m a proud member of a sorority, and I love Starbucks. Why does that give you a reason to mock me? It shouldn’t.

I don’t want to make this article about my frustration with my personal experiences. This isn’t about Greek life, brands, or what you choose to do on the weekend; this is about the underlying tension that has driven our campus into reckless discussions about discrimination.

Before the rap video controversy of last fall, the racial tension on campus wasn't very apparent to me. Despite the occasional whispers of people feeling treated differently, no one had said anything loud enough to start a movement. When the article on KA's party came out, I started to see things differently.

I've never been the type of person to judge anyone by his or her skin color. My first boyfriend was bi-racial, a fact that did not affect our relationship in any significant way. I loved him for the person he is.

When all of the drama began on campus I felt like others considered me as a racist just because I am white. As far as I’m concerned, this discrimination goes both ways.

Wake Forest, I believe that we’re smarter than this.

In this CNN article, Ben Carson, one of the many Republican presidential candidates, is quoted saying, "I operate on the thing that makes the person who they are. The skin doesn't matter to me. I really don't think those superficial characteristics have a place in society today."

That resonated with me far more than the prosecutions of our fellow Demon Deacons. Chalking the sidewalks, victimizing a fraternity when a small group of individuals are at fault and, most recently, analyzing my article. When I wrote an innocent, humorous article practically mocking our campuse's culture, it was analyzed far beyond my intentions. I have always been an advocate of ending the divide between the minorities and the majority on campus, so you see why it was a shock for me to be considered an advocate of white privilege. The Facebook turmoil is an incredible reflection on our campus.

Is White Privilege to Blame?

While -- as in any condensed community -- Wake Forest may inhabit some close minded, racist individuals, from my experience here, these individuals are low in number. Personally, I don’t think the problems on our campus stem from race, but from people’s insecurities. Like Carson said, race is a “superficial characteristic.”
Do you really find sorority girls, as a whole, annoying and b*tchy, or do you have a personal issue with a greek individual? When I heard the line, "They judge me like a picture book by the colors, like they forgot to read," in Lana Del Ray's song "Brooklyn Baby," I couldn't help but think of how clearly that articulates discrimination.

Everyone at Wake has insecurities, many of which result from us trying to conquer society's unattainable standards. Look around. How many girls do you see with eating disorders? How many of your friends are on anxiety meds? How many have drug addictions? I feel anxiety just thinking about going back to the environment where my problems began.

Like the old saying goes, 'The grass isn't always greener on the other side.'

I think that once we truly understand each other we can look beyond people's outward appearances.

Embrace Diversity

These insecurities are hindering our social climate from being the melting pot that it should be.

When we arrived on campus our freshman year, we knew that Wake Forest University is generally a bubble of southern and northern preps located in Winston Salem, North Carolina. It was never a surprise to me that sundresses were common and that “y’all” was part of people’s regular vocabulary. Thinking any differently would be like going to New York University and not expecting the students’ wardrobes to be mainly black or attending West Virginia University and expecting to never see camo and blue jeans.

We go to a school that cherishes Arnold Palmer like he’s a saint and only mentions Chris Paul on occasion. Clearly there’s a problem that goes beyond the student body itself.

That doesn’t mean things won’t change. Minorities, we heard you loud and clear. Let’s put our differences aside and change our campus climate together. Stop judging my background and I’ll stop judging you.

We should accept each other for who we are and learn from our different backgrounds.

Our backgrounds, our problems, and our futures are all different.

There are people who are fed with the silver spoon and fail just as much as there are people born without a dime and make it big.

Remember freshman year when most of the conversations we had were just trying to learn people’s backgrounds? Let’s take a step back and start from there. Let’s actually get to know people before accusing them of preps, thugs, rednecks, anything.

According to the Wake Forest University website, “The College honors the ideals of liberal learning, which encourages habits of mind that ask ‘why,’ that evaluate evidence, that are open to new ideas, that attempt to understand and appreciate the perspectives of others, that accept complexity and grapple with it.” Wake Forest, I believe that’s true. I think that we’re allowing our insecurities to overcome our brains. How can we be open to new ideas if we aren’t open to each other?

I believe that Wake Forest University could be a model for society instead of an ugly carbon copy. Just because the rest of America is in turmoil over race doesn’t mean that we should be.