Being situated in “the most diverse city in the nation” according to the 2000 U.S. Census, CSULB is also one of the most diverse universities in the country. In fact, CSULB’s emphasis has always been for preparing students to function effectively in a culturally diverse society. However, in the past year, one high school and a couple of universities faced an increase in racial hate crimes.
The University of Maryland police recently investigated a hate crime when a noose was hanging from a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups.
University of Maryland President C.D. Mote Jr. said in a Sept. 8 statement the act was “particularly abhorrent,” because it “appears intended to bring to mind the horrific crime of lynching, which is such a terrible and tragic part of our nation’s past.”
Five years ago, in 2002, 15 hate crimes were reported on the University of Maryland’s campus. Last year, five were reported, as records show. While in 2002, CSULB had one racial hate crime according to the University Police statistics. There hasn’t been any more hate crimes committed since.
Both the University of Maryland and CSULB provide programs plus a diverse campus population in which more than a third are of an ethnic minority. But with the demographic statistics, some students from both universities still believe that racism is a part of reality.
“We all know how they advertise it,” said Kyle Carson, co-president of the University of Maryland’s inter-cultural advocacy group Community Roots. “Diversity this, diversity that.” But, he said, “if things like this are happening, we know it’s not true.”
Juliette Ribeiro, a CSULB junior creative writing major said, “I think there will always be a portion of society that will dwell on racism but I do believe things will improve with each generation.” Ribeiro continues, “People suck and they always will, but I can only hope that in the future the good will outweigh the bad.”
Nonetheless, in the small town of Jena, Louisiana, the future is turning out to be not so bright.
Last September, three white students from Jena High School hung nooses from an oak tree on campus a day after a black freshman sat under it. The students who hung the nooses were given three days' suspension, and white youths involved in racially charged fights off campus received minimal punishment.
The leniency imposed on the students compiled volatile reactions from many black students that finally accumulated to last December’s incident involving six black students beating up a white student, Justin Barker.
The six black students would later be known as the Jena Six.
The Jena Six were all under the age of 18 and were charged as adults to attempted murder. The story went national 10 months later when Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. got involved, sparking many protests against how the authorities handled the cases.
CSULB’s director of the Multicultural Center, James Steven Manseau Sauceda mentioned that, “The Jena Six is considered to be just a regional issue but then in fact it’s a nationwide issue that needs to be brought to the attention of people.”
“People have a misguided interpretation of the legal term ‘hate speech’ always thinking if someone says something rather distasteful its immediately hate speech, when truthfully it’s not,” Saucedo adds. “But, people just have this habitual way to jump to negative conclusions.”
Saucedo mentions how people simply artifice tensions but nevertheless are constantly in denial by not “Admitting there is a root system of hurt and anger.” Saucedo then shared a quote from 1965 from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stating, “We artifice racial tensions that are already there…but merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”
The “hidden tension” was certainly alive and well when another “noose-realted” hate crime occurred at Columbia University on Oct. 9, when a noose was found on the office door of an African-American professor. A rally the following afternoon at the University was held to condone such actions.
Nationally, nearly 14 percent of reported hate crimes occur on college and school campuses, according to FBI crime statistics.
