Ivy Leaguers R White Like Us (The Nation)

BLOG | Posted 05/21/2007 @ 1:26pm
Ivy Leaguers R White Like Us

Lakshmi Chaudhry

Imagine looking out your cozy Harvard dorm room only to see a bunch of black folks whoopin' and hollerin' in the Quad. What's an Ivy Leaguer to do except call campus security. So the rent-a-cops arrive only to find -- oops! -- that troublemakers are members of the Black Men's Forum (BMF) and the Association of Black Harvard Women (ABHW), participating in an annual event that includes riotous -- or is it, riot-like -- activities like dodgeball.

Hmm, that would explain why all of them were wearing some form of Harvard paraphanelia.

Of course, all complainants deny even a slightest hint of racism, even of the unconscious, knee-jerk, didn't-really-think-about-it variety. Sure, these equal opportunity party-poopers would have sent "impassioned e-mails" questioning their presence on the public lawn--"and whether they were students at all"--even if hypothetical white hooligans were all wearing their Harvard sweat-shirts.

Bryan Barnhill, the head of BMF, plans to spearhead a campaign called "I am Harvard," to "show that subtle forms of racism exist, such as seeing a group of black people on Harvard property and assuming they don't belong there."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15

I guess this is an example of playing while black.