COLUMN: Aspirin Doesn't Cure Gunshot Wounds

From O.J. Lima's "Blues for Mr. Charlie," Fall '94 From O.J. Lima's "Blues for Mr. Charlie," Fall '94It was two Tuesdays ago when the Committee On Strengthening the Community released their report. They've fixed it all. Everyone should be quite happy. No one will be accountable for their actions. You'll be able to insult people any time you want to -- and even better, if you're a freshman, you'll be forced to live in a place which some alleged guru of race relations decreed is in your best interests of personal development. Hey, wait a minute, something doesn't sound right there. The administration isn't going to tell students what should or shouldn't be said, but they are going to tell students where they can and cannot live. Can we play "find the contradiction?" Granted, I'm generally opposed to black students having to make concessions since we have so very little, but simply stated, randomized housing is wrong. It's sporting to hope that with exposure, ignorant students can learn not to be so racially close–minded. However, it should not come at the expense of minority support networks such as the W.E.B. DuBois College House. In the same way the Quad offers white folks an escape from the surrounding blackness of West Philly, the DuBois House provides black students with a safe-haven from this University's periodic prejudice. Without it, and programs like it, minority students would find Penn a much more difficult place to acquire an education. Who knows what that committee was thinking when they recommended randomized housing -- not that it even matters. Kermit the frog never said a word without his puppeteer Jim Henson, and that committee never threw a pitch that the University's white trustees didn't call. They probably thought us po' ole Negroes would be shuckin' an' a jivin' once da repot cam out. Afta–all, it ain't ebry day us field hands is graced wit an' inbitation ta lives wit de massas up in da' big house. From an African–American perspective, randomized housing is unnecessary. If we haven't lived around white folks all our lives, the American schools have certainly force fed us enough eurocentric dogma to clarify any questions we might have had concerning the origins of white-American history and philosophy. The problem isn't that minorities aren't familiar with the respective cultures of white folks, but rather, white folks, are generally uneducated regarding minority cultures. However, this ignorance is not an adequate reason to make minority students guinea pigs in some foolish social experiment. The lack of racial diversity of any recent incoming class should be enough to convince anyone that randomized housing cannot work. Randomized housing for freshman would have very little effect upon the racial make-up of any dormitory. Freshman residences would continue to look like mountains of salt with sprinkles of pepper. What would any of these students learn about other cultures? Absolutely nothing. Why not? Because the size of each racial group present, except whites, would be too small to draw anything other than overly generalized conclusions. Only the most convoluted definition would characterize this as exposure. It has also been said that at the very least, it couldn't hurt to have university residences diversified in that way. After all, students would still have the option of eating and socializing with their own kind. If that's the case, than randomizing housing is completely pointless. Even though proximity of ethnic groups would be changed, if the dissimilar folks didn't socialize, exposure would remain the same -- nonexistent. What is truly disturbing about randomized housing is that if you look closely and read between the lines it's actually secret code for, "Get rid of DuBois House." I fail to believe that those who want to get rid of DuBois care enough for black students that they truly believe we are doing ourselves a disservice by living in alleged segregation. It seems more likely that at an institution which was built with white money, to study white philosophy, white folks find it extremely threatening and possibly down right offensive that, because they are not black, they feel they cannot enter DuBois. However, DuBois and all other Living–Learning programs are open to everyone. White students should never even ponder the excuse that they would be intimidated or feel awkward to come over here. That is not a valid excuse. If it were, black students could tell professors that coming to class was impossible because they were afraid of encountering the multitudes of white students traversing Locust Walk. Once the commission began to back peddle on the issue, their secret code became easily decipherable. At first they endorsed complete randomization. Then under fire, they recommended that only Living-Learning programs be ineligible to incoming students. This will not get white students out of the Quad. It will only get black students out of DuBois. Each year, more than sixty percent of DuBois' residents are freshmen. Since more than half of the expected inhabitants would no longer qualify for residency, the program's University funding would be greatly reduced -- it's mission would become less effective, and its existence whittled down to a mere shadow of its present form. The only other noticeable result randomized housing will make is the utter chaos it will cause at the Office of Residential Living. In the end, if freshmen are unhappy with their living arrangements, they'll gripe and fight until they get them changed. No one pays 26 thousand dollars to be unhappy. If you don't believe me then give the Office of Residential Living at Duke University a call. I'm sure they'd be more than willing to explain to you that the easiest way to determine the potential failure of a plan is to implement it -- especially since their randomized housing program went down in flames last fall. As my roommate, David Williams, summed up our discussion the other night, "You can force people to live together but you can't force a positive experience." Unless the administration is willing to pay minority students the salaries of tenured Wharton professors, randomized housing is not the solution to our deep seeded racial and social problems. Instead of trying to cure a gunshot wound with aspirin, the University needs to seriously restructure the environment in which students interact. There is clearly something wrong with our environment when black students feel so defenseless that even words like, "Water Buffalo" hurt, when Eden Jacobowitz is viewed as a martyr for insulting his fellow students -- regardless if he was racially motivated or not, and when UTV broadcasts a show which mocks that tragic incident with insensitive film clips and an anniversary cake. We need to foster an environment which is more conducive to socialization. Deporting Kim Morrison from the Office of Student Life was the first positive step. Now, why don't we put some willing non–white men on Locust walk, diversify incoming classes, and encourage programming between various Living–Learning programs. But don't tell students who they can and can't live with. It will only make folks feel insulted and bitter. We don't like to be treated like children who need someone to lead them by the hand. The rest is up to students to prove we aren't children. Individuals must be willing to take their own initiative. In the end it's a University community issue. We all must live and learn here. No one wants this condition to get worse. The University community must be revamped by both the administration and the students in a manner which is conducive and beneficial for everyone to participate. Otherwise everyone loses. So we'd better get our faces off the mat soon, because so far ignorance is undefeated and we're one knockdown away from a TKO. O.J. Lima is a senior English major from Providence, Rhode Island. Blues for Mr. Charlie appears alternate Thursdays.