One-Fourth of Incoming College Freshmen Say Racism Is No Longer An Issue in America

[KamaAina]

, Proving That Many Whites Live in a State of Self-Delusion

http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/02/07/one-fourth-incoming-college-freshmen-say-racism-longer-issue-america-indictment-white-parents-schools/

In a year where racism and police hostility to African-Americans took center stage, a stunning one-fourth of incoming college freshmen say racism is no longer a problem in the United States, according to UCLA’s annual poll of students.

While media coverage of the school’s poll of 153,015 students who were entering college in September seemed to celebrate the fact that the number of students who think racism is no longer a problem has reached its highest point in the 25-year history of the poll, the real question should be how so many students could be living in the U.S. and come away with that conclusion.

Since 66 percent of the students in the poll were white (11 percent were Black), it seems more than anything to indicate that white parents, families and schools are not having truthful conversations with their children about the racial climate that swirls around them in this country. In a year that was marked by angry crowds swarming through the streets in cities across the nation, not just once or a few times but consistently over months, how could a full 24.7 percent of the 18-year-olds polled actually believe racism was no longer among us?

When UCLA first posed that question to incoming students in 1990, the number who said racism was a thing of the past was 18 percent.

But, but, but we have a black President!

[tiredtoo]

1. And sad to say

"But, but, we have a black President" is the reason 25 percent think racism is no longer a problem. Shallow minds create shallow thoughts.

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Open your eyes, people.

Sheesh-no wonder we're in the state we are in.

[uponit7771]

3. This is UCLA students only...

[KamaAina]

4. The second-best campus in the whole UC system.

Behind only Berkeley. If anything, the nationwide figure would be even higher.

[yuiyoshida]

5. Its still an issue...

I certainly have felt it's sting often enough. (Though not here, which is why I love hanging out here!)

[hunter]

6. Wealthier mostly white Republican kids, I'd guess.

They live in a bubble.

And they are also the ones who will get through college without any financial wounds.

They go to school without financial aid. They went to good schools K-12, and whenever their college tuition, fees, rent, and living expenses are due (or maybe they just "need" to fly somewhere for spring break...) mom or dad simply refills their bank accounts and pays their credit card bills.

They look around at college, see a lot of people of other races (some they even call friends) and they are entirely clueless that not everyone has it as easy as they do. Nope, no, racism isn't an issue... not to them.

If anything, the class divisions in college are worse now then when I went. Compared to college costs today, when I went to college it was cheap. My parents were not poor, but they were not wealthy either, so I'd often get straight grants, not loans, to cover my fees. What expenses remained were covered by my grandma, my parents, and me working. (Relying on my parents entirely wasn't really an option, sometimes their checks bounced.)

Fuck that venal meat puppet Ronald Reagan and the assholes who wrote his scripts. They hate education.

[Saucepan of Kerbango]

7. ?

This is UCLA we're talking about, isn't it?

[KamaAina]

8. It is indeed.

So there goes that theory. And welcome to DU!

[hunter]

11. I'd say that's what confirmed my theory.

These are 18 year olds, many fresh from the wealthy Republican wastelands of California and beyond. They are "colorblind" in the clueless way. We used to call them "RPV" kids, for places like Rancho Palos Verdes, La Jolla, Beverly Hills, and other very affluent 99.44% Ivory Soap white areas of California. They'd say they were from "RPV" or something else like that, fully expecting people to know whatever the hell place they were talking about and be impressed; not any different than some gangster kid bragging about their gang affiliations.

Gee, I'm sorry, are those shoelaces supposed to mean anything to me?

I grew up in a community that was Ivory Soap white and it was kept that way well past sundown laws, many years past equal housing and employment laws. It's still very white now, but the DWB police sports and unspoken wink-wink redlining and employment practices are no longer so overt.

Alas, any affluence I enjoyed as a kid was a hit-or-miss thing, usually a miss. My parents are basically artists who had day jobs and a mess of kids. Sometimes they got lucky outside their day jobs and their checks didn't bounce. Those weren't always the good times, however. My favorite memories now (but maybe not at the time) are things like my parents and my siblings living as indigent Americans in a public park in France, or me living in my car in a church parking lot and trying to get readmitted to university. A kind person had signed me up with a locker in the university gym, I had a post office box, and there were apartments nearby with pay washing machines and dryers that were easily spoofed. Yes, I had some mental health issues at the time, at my worst I can't stand to be around most people and was basically an invisible dumpster diving feral person in the dark, but I was clean when I was hanging out in the library or computer labs. The police even accepted me as someone who was mostly harmless and good for a few laughs at two in the morning, but I'm sure it helped that I was a generally affable, and white.

My own kids got accepted to UCLA, but that's not where they chose to go. My wife's a UCLA graduate, so is my sister. Among my siblings, and my wife's siblings, we have kids who are UC students. It's hugely more expensive now than it was then.

There are some places in California where the kids actually do seem to be fairly colorblind in their own interactions. The divide in my own community seems to be whether your primary language is English or Spanish. Otherwise the kids seem to be relatively mix & match in their social interaction. The kids one stumbles upon snogging behind the trailers, in their cars, or in the bushes, sometimes even in my own house, represent a full rainbow of humanity, color-wise and sexual-preference-wise. (My parent's house, wherever they happen to be living, has always been the same.)

The neighborhood I live in is diverse. But sadly, for many of my kids' childhood friends, university today isn't really the option financially it was when my wife, me, and our siblings were in college. My wife and I, supposedly more affluent than our parents, are occasional student loan deadbeats and we're having trouble getting our youngest through to graduation.

[KamaAina]

14. Most UC undergrads come from within California.

About 95 percent. And they hardly all come from our few Republican wastelands; a common complaint of bigots is that Asian students are overrepresented at UC.

[hunter]

15. I'm very close to this issue.

Very, very close, from many angles.

[Nye Bevan]

9. The younger generation is much less racist than the older generations, in general,

if my kids and their friends are anything to go by. I know that some here maintain that "colorblindness" is evil and racist, but these kids give every appearance of really not giving a shit about each other's race.

Perhaps the main mistake is not realizing that even though they and their friends are not racist, racism does still exist in the United States today.

[hifiguy]

10. I think you have touched directly on the crux of the biscuit here, Nye.

[MillennialDem]

12. Yep I'm 34 and thought the same thing. When I saw how racist older republicans

are I figured it out.

[gollygee]

13. They said that they thought racism was no longer an issue in America

It wasn't a question about the difference between racism within their generation and others.

I am very surprised that this year, where there has been so much attention on differences in police behavior depending on the race of the person involved, anyone would say that racism is no longer an issue in America.