White Guys on Campus by Nolan L Cabrera

Author:Nolan L Cabrera [Cabrera, Nolan L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Discrimination, Education, Inclusive Education, Higher, Multicultural Education, Gender Studies, Men's Studies
ISBN: 9780813599083
Google: ay5SDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2018-11-15T05:25:18+00:00

“Minorities Took Over the Student Council, So We Took It Back”: The Example of Roger

Roger was very involved on campus and was concurrently frustrated by what he saw as a community fractured along racial/ethnic lines. Like Trevor, it was very telling where he placed blame for this phenomenon. He began by offering, “I think race relations on campus are poor at WU largely because while there is a diverse view within the student population, there isn’t very good integration of that diverse population.” Roger then offered his explanation as to why the community was so divided:

It is absolutely the case that minorities self-segregate. If it wasn’t there wouldn’t be a number of clubs that identify solely by ethnic background. There wouldn’t be a MEChA. There wouldn’t be an African Student Union. There wouldn’t be an Asian Pacific Coalition, a Samhan, a Filipino, a Vietnamese Student Union, and a this and a that and the other thing. Even within the queer community at WU the queer community or the queer alliance is a number of ethnic queer organizations that come together. Mishpacha is the Jewish queer organization. There’s Blaq with a “q.” There’s La Familia, which is the Latino/Latina. There’s Mahu, which is the API, Asian/Pacific Islander queer organization on campus. So, there are.… There’s this massive self-segregation.

It was telling not only whom Roger mentioned in this impressive list, but also whom he left out. Specifically, he never mentioned groups that have predominantly White populations as being responsible for campus self-segregation. Instead, he thought that blame fell squarely on Students of Color. Roger was very direct on that point: “I don’t know of a White Student Association.” It was from this orientation that Roger described his involvement in his university’s student government.

Roger began by saying, “I’m also part of [slate’s name], which is one of two major parties in student government. It’s the party that is the less ethnocentric of the two parties.” This frame was telling because he did not see his largely White group as being “ethnocentric.” It was, in his understanding, the group of Students of Color who gained control of the student government about a decade earlier were the ones being ethnocentric. Roger offered a historical perspective: “One of the interesting phenomena that’s occurred here and this is one of the reasons that I’m so involved in the student government is about the same time that Prop 209 was introduced a number of student organizations on campus got together and created the first student government political parties at this university.3 It used to not be so political. It used to be that not really anyone wanted to do it and a few people had a popularity contest. And it was kind of heavily Greek dominated by like the fraternity/sorority system.” This was a fascinating intersection of race and space. For Roger, student government was not political when it was “dominated” by Greek members who were also heavily White and affluent. He never expressed any discomfort at White

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