COLUMN: The negative effects of separatism

From Mike Liskey's, "The Raod Less Traveled," Fall '96 From Mike Liskey's, "The Raod Less Traveled," Fall '96 Human foresight has disappeared with the dawn of the disposable age. There is no need to teach our children multiplication tables, since they have calculators. There is no need to teach our children how to spell, since they have spell-check. And there is no need to teach genders and races how to live together, since they have separatist college housing. Most people, and society in general, are afraid to criticize blacks and black institutions. Rightfully questioning the existence of such institutions automatically classifies you as racist. If that is the false title I must bear for wanting equality over special privilege and condemning reverse racism, so be it. With that in mind, I must express the privilege I feel to be at a modern and progressive university like Penn, which is celebrating this year the 25th anniversary of such a fine racist institution as DuBois. DuBois was originally intended to be a "black residence." After seeing the blatant racism and potential legal problems of such a proposal, it was cosmetically altered to be open to all students. In reality, DuBois would never be open to all students because of the racial motives that created it and its emphasis on black culture. By naming the college house after a black individual, the black-only welcome mat was put out for all to see. The students who live in DuBois do so because of the comfort level inherent in an all-black community. If it only were as simple as an all-black community, students would have unofficially agreed to live together on black floors, like other races and ethnic groups currently do. By establishing an entire college house like DuBois, though, these students' separatist, racist views were institutionalized within a physical structure. It is even more amazing that such institutionalized racism is not only condoned by the faculty, but is overseen by a "faculty master." DuBois was conceived by racist students and faculty preaching separatism and was delivered 25 years ago by administrators' white, liberal guilt. Neither side comprehended the irreparable damage its weakness and racism would do to future race relations at Penn. Perhaps some who were involved in the debate over DuBois assumed the courts would step in and correct this wrong. After all, judges had been stepping into the racial picture for over 20 years when the DuBois housing fiasco occurred. But then the white guilt of the greater Philadelphia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union intervened. The ACLU declined the request of University students for legal assistance in challenging the proposed "racially exclusive residential center for black undergraduates." The ACLU also had the nerve to say that "no white students are being discriminated against by setting aside a portion of one building." Ironically, if the students' claim had been against a residential center for white undergraduates, the ACLU and the National Guard would have both come to Penn and forced the elimination of such self-imposed segregation. Over the years, DuBois has attempted to justify its existence by teaching the culture and literature of Africans and African Americans. But you don't need a house dedicated to these ideals for such lessons to be learned. I still haven't found the Gay and Lesbian House, the Slavic Languages House or the Western European Cultural House. If students are interested in these subjects and desire personal growth, let them take classes like everybody else. Incoming students know Penn's goals with respect to racial and ethnic diversity, and these goals are quintessential to developing an understanding of the real people we live with and the real world we live in. Unfortunately, that world sometimes includes the Georgia state flag and its Confederate panel. Insulating students from the realities of the world is counter-productive and counter-intuitive to everything Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement began to change. The long journey toward clearing racial tensions from campus will never begin until separatist roadblocks like DuBois disappear from Penn. Blacks need to integrate into the larger Penn community, just like other racial groups on campus. Looking beyond race and skin color as the qualifier for friends, roommates and residential living is the key to dismantling the elitist and racist attitudes that continue to drive a stake through the heart of racial harmony here.