“He sure as hell isn’t my president” were the words I woke up to at 3 a.m. last Thursday night. A drunken ad hominem attack was being waged outside my apartment building, and the enemy was our President-elect Barack Obama. The man’s anger quickly turned upon an Asian-American on a nearby balcony. “Go back to your country; this is ‘merica!” he said.
Some witnesses pleaded with the man to stop his barrage of hate. Others calmly warned him the police were on the way. I tried to fall back asleep, hoping this individual was not a member of the UT community.
But I have not been able to shake this scene from my mind.
Our country has always had racial tension — this nation was built on the notion of racial superiority, white supremacy and forced minority subservience. Last week’s historic decision heightened this tension. There is no denying the goal of a racially equitable society has become more tangible, but to believe we have transcended racism based on a single election, no matter how integral it might have been, is absurd.
When we hear about one of UT’s own football players publicly declaring rascist sentiments, it not only demoralizes us as a community but reminds us there is no easily identifiable, singular face of racism — it is a collective and systemically perpetuated idea that knows no gender, sex or, ironically, racial boundaries.
Sometimes it’s a shared whisper of fear between like-minded people. Other times it’s an overtly egregious action, such as the noose found in a tree on the Baylor campus last week.
The presidential campaigns highlighted the hostility toward non-whites, most notably in the last months of the Republican candidate’s campaign trail. The ignorant voices in the crowd at rallies for Sen. John McCain have not disappeared. They have just carried their views elsewhere. Those discriminatory remarks do not evaporate into the ether, they do not get blown away by the “winds of change” nor are they dismissed by the election of a black president. Those hate-filled voices — from my late-night disturbance to the prejudiced epithets of ralliers — permeate our culture and echo loudly.
To thoroughly tackle the complexities of racism in a single column is inevitably impossible. Yet, with the events transpiring on our campus as well as others around the state, it is an opportune time to call for open, honest dialogue. We should embrace the significant progress recently made, but also understand real progress can only be achieved when we openly and critically discuss the issue.
Starting here, we can talk about diversity on campus, minority leadership and faculty equity in everything from hiring practices to health care benefits. Given several recent reports, there are areas that desperately need our attention and we must figure out how to effectively remedy these situations.
We can talk about the climate of racial hostility, who feels subjected to it and how we can make our campus less intimidating and more accommodating.
We can question how accurately minority enrollment statistics at the University mirror state and national demographics and how well they fulfill their mission to promote an ethnically and academically diverse campus.
As a university, we should open up the conversation. We can make progress, and we can take what we’ve accomplished and apply it on a national scale.
After all, this is America.
Tuma is a journalism senior.
