Politics and Pucks

A few weeks ago, there was another racial incident on Purdue's campus. This is the third or fourth I can remember since being here (and I'm sure there have been more). Sadly, I'm not surprised by this.

As an RA at the school, I saw a really ugly side of this school when it came to inclusiveness in our programming. Our diversity training sessions in both years, were not taken seriously, even by some of our superiors. I should mention, that I was on a mostly white staff the first year as an RA and it showed. The next year, things improved and I was working with a pretty awesome and diverse staff. When RA's, the university's "poster students" and role models for those living in the dorms, and there's no incentive to really do diversity programming in a large manner, it's disturbing. My first year as an RA there was another RA who fought tooth and nail to not have LGBTQ training in the hall, because of a religious objection. By the way, that RA won that battle and the staff didn't have that training. The next year we had the training, but it didn't help that there were a number of incidents that dealt with this issue in the year we actually needed the training. We handled it so-so, but frankly we could have done a much better job about it.

From a new student's perspective, right now I would say the impression is this: if you're not white, Christian, or from Indiana in some capacity, your social outlets are now very limited. As someone who fits only one of those descriptors, I have always felt somewhat out of place since I've been here. Additonally, you're not even really catered to at all either if you're different. Jewish students have no access to matzah in the residence halls during Passover, it took until a few years ago to get gender equality added to the city of West Lafayette's ordinance. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

However, it is completely okay when classes are cancelled Good Friday, so students vacate campus early for Easter, or even call Purdue Village names that use Asian slurs. It's even okay, if Purdue Right to Life to set up a large fully funded display about abortion, which used Holocaust imagery on the Jewish High Holidays (this was also a block from Hillel). These things are just accepted here, and I'm sick of this being the case. I really don't know how much longer I'll be living in West Lafayette, but I still care that someone who comes here in the future, who is not like the stereotypical student can at least feel safe. I have the Society of Non-Theists, but that's even too risque for this university to have a group of people who don't believe in an Abrahamic religion.

Maybe it's not entirely the school, but also the student body that seems to be indifferent to anything that happens on campus. Yes, I'm on a college campus, where students freak out if someone is protesting anything. It doesn't matter what it is: pro-abortion, non-religious rights, LGBTQ rights, any demonstration is not taken seriously, or mostly ignored. Even when there's important information to hand out about emergencies, no one listens. It's as if we live in a bubble, and I definitely notice it when I drive 10 miles out of town (and it's pretty rural at that point). In order to change this, we need to start with ourselves. Take a moment to look at my friend Nick Goldsmith's blog post on the incident that happened. Like Nick says, we need to start reporting bias, because this isn't a rare event. This kind of stuff is happening everyday on this campus, and the problem is that not only is the university doing nothing about it, but people seem to not care either. 

Just because we have a nice building on campus that's called the "Black Cultural Center" doesn't solve racism issues. Just because we have a mosque on campus, doesn't purge the anti-Muslim sentiment on campus. Just because there's a Hillel doesn't mean that Jewish students really are supported by the university for any of their religious obligations. It's this attitude that needs to stop, and if Purdue wants to be serious about these problems, they need to take a more active approach to solving it. Start by taking diversity seriously in the residence halls, and don't just rely on the RA's to put on appropriate programming. That's a passive step, that can and does end up not promoting diversity at all.

By the way, as a closing statement, I think that taking a serious approach on this issue might also yield some ground on another issue that seems to have Purdue puzzled. The reason that international students aren't interested in interacting with the Americans on campus is because they don't feel comfortable with them. If I was in their shoes, I think I'd feel exactly the same.