Texas A&M dogged by racist image

The only reason I'm posting this is because it was splashed on the front page of the Chronicle and of course it just goes to show the atmosphere at A&M which is where that cartoon was printed.

Texas A&M dogged by racist image
Some black students question motives in effort for tolerance
By RON NISSIMOV

COLLEGE STATION -- At a recent rally described as the largest demonstration over race relations in the 125-year history of Texas A&M University, some students were skeptical about the administration's show of solidarity.

Three of the school's most recognized leaders, President Ray Bowen, football coach R.C. Slocum and men's basketball coach Melvin Watkins, spoke to several hundred students about the need for more racial tolerance on campus.

"The only reason Slocum spoke is because he didn't want the African-American Student Coalition messing with his recruits," said Samecia Bloomfield, a black senior from Forestville, Md. "It all comes down to money. This university will not give a poppycock about the racial climate on campus until it starts hurting their pocketbooks."

Her doubts about the motivations of the coaches illustrate the difficult task A&M faces in overcoming its image as being inhospitable to minorities.

While other observers shared those doubts, Bloomfield knew something that most students at the rally did not.

Four days before the Jan. 28 demonstration, a group of black student leaders met in private and proposed writing black high school football recruits about the perceived racial hostilities at A&M if the athletic department did not take a public stand on a brewing controversy.

On Jan. 14, the student newspaper, the Battalion, published an editorial cartoon that was perceived by many as racist. Bowen publicly denounced it a few days later and asked the newspaper to apologize. Slocum and Watkins had not spoken out about the cartoon, even though most of their star athletes are black.

The proposal to write the recruits was discussed about two weeks before national signing day, when sought-after high school athletes decide where to play college football.

"We thought it would be unconscionable to allow the athletes to come here without knowing what the racial climate would be like," said Bereket Bisrat, a Houston sophomore who is the spokesman for A&M's African-American Student Coalition.

On Jan. 25, Slocum got wind of the proposal and called Bisrat.

Bisrat, who said he disagreed with the proposal because he thought it would be divisive, said it was the first thing Slocum brought up.

"He said it would be devastating for athletic recruiting and would set the university back for years," Bisrat recalled in a recent interview. "He said, `Don't do that; let's work together to speak out.' "

About an hour later, Bisrat said, he received a call from Watkins. "He didn't sound informed about the cartoon," Bisrat said. "He was asking what was in the cartoon and when did it run. He was even shocked to discover the newspaper hadn't apologized."

The coaches agreed to speak at the rally, and the letters were never written. The editor of the Battalion apologized hours before the planned demonstration, which was turned into a rally for racial tolerance.

"Red, yellow, black or brown, Jesus loves everybody," Slocum said at the rally, pointing out that he has filled the last three openings for assistant coaches with blacks and has four black assistant coaches.

Watkins, the first black head coach in A&M's history, said racial intolerance "will not have a place on campus."

Bisrat said he believed the coaches would have eventually spoken out because they were outraged. But he added, "Once it threatened recruiting, I can't conceive of them not saying anything after that."

Slocum and Watkins last week said the proposed letter played no role in their decisions to speak out. They said A&M's perceived racial climate has never affected their recruiting.

"As one of the most visible leaders on campus, I felt like it would have been cowardice on my part not to take a public stand," Slocum said.

Watkins said he heard about the proposal to contact recruits only after he talked to black student leaders about the rally. He said he did not know much about the cartoon controversy until shortly before the rally because he was busy with basketball season.

Bloomfield called the choice of speakers hypocritical.

"They want blacks to come here and run and throw and pitch and bring national recognition, but they don't necessarily want to see you on campus," she said.

Bloomfield said she has experienced racial hostilities on campus firsthand.

She organized a weeklong series of events to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday this year. Last month, she sent a university-approved e-mail to tens of thousands of students asking them to participate. Although she was heartened that hundreds of students of various ethnic groups participated, she was shocked to receive 10 hostile responses.

One response was clearly racially offensive. Another read, "Frankly, I don't care about MLK. He was a great guy and all that, but even if he hadn't given all those nice speeches racism would have died off anyway, and he certainly doesn't merit a Federal holiday or all this apotheosizing."

Bloomfield spent four years in A&M's Corps of Cadets military training program, which she said has pockets of racism. She said that as an upperclassman, she had to stop some white Corps members from slipping a racially offensive note under the door of a black member saying, "Get out."

Although black students interviewed for this story said there were some racial tensions, most said the problems at A&M are not fundamentally different from those at other universities. All the students praised the Bowen administration for trying to address the issue.

"Because of our history, we get our dirty laundry aired a lot more," said Shannon Davis, a black senior from Houston. "Pointing out problems at A&M is easier than looking internally to solve racial problems everywhere else."

Bisrat said A&M could probably be equated to other Southern universities in terms of racial tensions but that it would be "absolutely preposterous" to say A&M doesn't face more racial problems than East and West Coast universities or the University of Texas.

Observers say a conflation of factors has led to A&M's image. These include a high percentage of conservative, white students and a low percentage of minority students, as well as traditions stemming from its history as an all-male, overwhelmingly white institution that provided technical and military training for rural youths.

This year, 82 percent of the 44,000 students at A&M are white, 10 percent are Hispanic, 3 percent black and 3 percent Asian-American.

Other universities in the South have ethnic enrollment figures comparable to A&M's. UT's enrollment this year is 61 percent white, 13 percent Hispanic, 3 percent black and 20 percent Asian-American.

A study completed in December by A&M's Race and Ethnic Studies Institute revealed that 97 percent of white students have a positive image of the school, while 65 percent of minorities have a negative view. A 1997 study completed by University of Michigan researchers commissioned by A&M showed that 53 percent of white students felt A&M was not racist, but only 18 percent of blacks felt the same way. Forty percent of Hispanics and 36 percent of Asian-Americans said the university was not racist.

The December study concluded that minorities become increasingly alienated the longer they stay at the school, describing the typical four-year experience for minorities as, "Freshmen: Frustrated with a lack of diversity. Culture shock. Sophomore: Decision to stay or leave. Junior: Learn coping mechanisms. Form cliques. Seniors: Eager to leave. In general, not a good spokesperson for Texas A&M University."

Like at A&M, Confederate flags dot the landscape at many Southern institutions, a frequent source of irritation for blacks.

The Corps of Cadets a few years ago banned the display of Confederate flags at Corps facilities. A student sued, but the lawsuit was withdrawn before it went to trial, said A&M spokesman Lane Stephenson.

One thing that sets A&M apart, even from the Southern schools, is a variety of revered, high-profile traditions. The traditions, which included the Bonfire before it was canceled after a 1999 accident that killed 12, were developed while A&M required all students to undergo military training and before it admitted blacks and women in the 1960s.

The fervor that many white students and alumni still have about the school's traditions tends to exacerbate the feeling of isolation among minorities at A&M, said the students interviewed for this story. The students said minorities rarely participate in the traditions, which are regularly attended by thousands of white students.

"Before Bonfire fell, my black friends used to tell me, `You better watch yourself going out in the dark with white guys with ropes,' " Bloomfield said.

She said she enjoys Aggie traditions but that she could count "on one hand the number of blacks who participated in Bonfire." Before Bowen recently decided not to hold Bonfire next fall, the university proposed making the tradition friendlier for black students.

Christine Randolph, a senior from Austin, said she went to "Fish Camp" as a freshman because she wanted to learn about Aggie traditions. (In Aggie lexicon, fish are freshmen students.)

"It was so boring," she said. "It's not geared for people of other cultures. It didn't pique my interest."

Randolph said she was one of "two or three" blacks out of 700 students who attended her camp.

The university has actively attempted to attract more minorities since the early 1980s, when Texas entered into an agreement with the federal government to try to end segregation in higher education. That decade, A&M established a Multicultural Services Center to help educate students on minority issues and significantly increased minority enrollment by offering race-based admissions preferences and scholarships.

University officials say the 1996 Hopwood decision banning racial preferences in admissions and scholarships has made the task of attracting students more difficult. But even in 1996, the last year before Hopwood went into effect, enrollment was 80 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic, 4 percent black and 3 percent Asian-American.

In the wake of Hopwood, the university has significantly expanded its outreach programs to predominantly minority high schools, increased the percentage of minority faculty and, despite resistance from alumni, implemented multicultural educational programs in 2000.

The A&M System Board of Regents has proposed automatically admitting seniors graduating in the top 20 percent of their classes from 250 Texas high schools with predominantly minority enrollments. Only the top 10 percent would be admitted from other schools. Regents are waiting on Texas Attorney General John Cornyn to rule on the constitutionality of the proposal.

Finney Coleman, one of three African-American studies professors hired as a group two years ago, said A&M is the largest university in the country without an African-American studies degree program. He said A&M could create a new type of African-American studies "free of the political baggage" often associated with such programs at other universities.

Last year, Coleman said, he received hostile e-mails for starting a popular class on hip-hop culture.

He said he and a fellow black instructor were harassed while driving in the College Station area a couple of years ago by young white men who had "A&M stickers and Confederate flags on their car." The men were loudly playing a song with racial epithets and saying to the black teachers, "You got a problem?"

"I love the spirit of this place, but I wish I could be in love with the spirit of this place," Coleman said. "I can't do that just yet."

But some white students say the increased focus on race is eroding the sense of unity that makes A&M unique among the nation's large universities. They see A&M as a haven from the political correctness they believe dominates most U.S. colleges. They argue that the administration is helping to fracture the campus along ethnic lines like at other universities by caving in to the demands of minorities.

"Since the Bonfire fell and the push for diversity started, this campus has become much more divided," said James Drew, a white senior from Round Rock who last year founded the Southern Heritage Society student organization to defend Southern culture and such symbols as the Confederate flag.

The organization was founded after a Texas transportation office near A&M removed a prominently displayed painting of former Chancellor Gilbert "Gibb" Gilchrist because of complaints from some students and faculty members. The portrait had a small, embedded portrait of Gilchrist's hero, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A new portrait of Gilchrist was put up in the foyer, and the controversial portrait was displayed in a less prominent location.

Drew said he went through "every professor in the history and political science departments" before finally finding a mathematics professor willing to sponsor his organization so the university could sanction it. "I think we're seeing the reverse effect of what they (minorities) claim they want," Drew said. "This campus was extremely united, but now tensions are dividing us up."

Bloomfield scoffed at the claim.

"They want black people to be happy, and they want us to stop making it a black-and-white issue," she said. "It's not us who's doing it."

 

Princess I don't own US News. If you're that upset with their ranking of UH then write them, don't complain to me. Your b****ing to me about it just makes me giggle.

I think your last diatribe of "opinions" out of left field just convinces me further that you are way too angry and you might need some help or something.