COLUMN: As Far As I'm Concerned ... Columns I Never wrote

From Felix Rouse's "Still I Rise," Fall '95 · The present administration's agenda has concerned many people who live in college house programs -- especially in W.E.B. Dubois College House. Frankly, I don't blame them. The new plan states that it wants diversity within the dorm environment. Exactly what type of diversity is desired is not exactly clear. What has been said is that there is desire for more intellectual learning to be done in the dorm areas. There is also a need for more faculty interaction and more programs aimed at stimulating intellectual conversation within the dorms. This may be lacking in some of the other residences, but within Dubois College House there have been few complaints. The atmosphere of "the house" is one of learning and intellectual conversation. As one student remarked during a recent forum, "The amount of learning that I have received in Dubois College House is twice that of what I have learned in the classrooms of this university." The feeling is that W.E.B. Dubois College House is under attack, and there is no evidence to disprove this fact. The President and Provost have come in with proposals that severely impact Dubois College House, yet they have not even bothered to visit the house yet and see why it is so important to African-American students on this campus. Dubois College House offers so much -- to propose plans that would affect its existence without looking into it, is both careless and irresponsible, and should be considered a direct attack. This administration should be more concerned with getting the African-American population on this campus to even 10 percent before it goes planning a future that would discourage African-American students from applying. · The issue of whether there should be minority-based scholarships is really starting to come into question. Recent court decisions have left many institutions -- and minorities -- wondering about the future of these types of scholarships. This debate will soon hit the Supreme Court and we will soon see how far this country has come. My belief is that minorities will take yet another blow on the chin when it comes to the many changes that the civil rights movement fought so hard to make a reality. The unfortunate thing is that those changes have not really come about, and mainstream America is already trying to attack things like minority scholarships before they have even had the chance to change anything. Whites are already using terms such as "reverse discrimination" when they have yet to truly address the original form of discrimination. Discrimination continues to exist in this country, and institutionalized forms of racism (such as the housing and education systems) will keep it prevalent in our society. Attacking minority scholarships is like attacking the very means through which many minorities enter college in the first place. It is difficult enough to provide motivation and hope for most disadvantaged minorities. Telling them that there aren't scholarships out there available to them would tell most that there is no reason to work hard, because even if you score a 1200 on your SAT's and have a 3.5 gpa you won't be able to afford college anyway. Even this school's policy of factoring any outside scholarships into your total financial aid package is unfair to most minorities because it leaves many with a huge bill to pay that could have been covered by that very scholarship. This is why most blacks take the option of going to black institutions where that is not the case. Taking away minority-based scholarships would only provide further evidence that this country is blind to the problems of the poor. Many in mainstream America are only concerned with what they personally can get out of something. Racism exists in many forms and this would just be another one. · My final gripe is with those Jewish people who try to parallel the experience of blacks in this country with their own. There is no comparison, historically or otherwise. Yes, Jewish people have suffered a great deal in their history and this is not what is being argued against. What I have a problem with is the insinuation that a Jewish person could possibly understand the depth of the problem of being black in this country. The comparison is drawn when the historical struggles of both races are mentioned. However, even those struggles should not be compared because they are not that alike. Jewish people have suffered a great deal in their history, but yet they have a home to identify with. African-Americans have no home to identify with. Africa is as foreign to African-Americans as any other country. Also, in terms of raw numbers, the African slave trade had a devastating impact on the continent of Africa and still has lingering effects on the continent today. At least 20 million Africans died during the slave passage alone, whereas six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. The issue, however, isn't what race had the most people killed -- both were victims of unspeakable horrors -- but rather that the African "Holocaust" has continued to the present day. Finally, there is no comparison when it comes to discrimination in this country. There is no hiding the color of your skin. A Jewish person doesn't get followed around CVS because he or she is Jewish. A Jewish person won't strike fear in the heart of a person walking down the street at midnight. A Jewish person doesn't get rejected as often for a loan from a bank because he is Jewish. A Jewish person doesn't see a whole neighborhood begin to move out just because he moved in. There are many things that a Jewish person just does not see, but a black person does. Stop comparing. Felix Rouse is a junior Political Science major from Newark, New Jersey. Still, I Rise appeared alternate Thursdays this semester.