‘Progressive’ racism: Jemele Hill wants ‘black athletes to leave white colleges’
‘Progressive’ racism: Jemele Hill wants ‘black athletes to leave white colleges’
The former ESPN host turned The Atlantic columnist published a piece on Thursday titled, “It’s Time for Black Athletes to Leave White Colleges.” Her misguided essay argues that so-called “white universities” are exploiting top black college athletes for profit.
Hill insists that by choosing en masse to only go to historically black colleges and universities, black athletes “could disrupt the reign of an ‘amateur’ sports system that uses the labor of black folks to make white folks rich.” In other words, she wants black college athletes to self-segregate, because she thinks it would benefit HBCUs and all-black schools.
In her column, Hill correctly notes that “top black athletes used to go to black colleges,” that is, when racial segregation was still in place. Hill points out that before the famous Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision banning school segregation, the options were quite limited as to where African Americans could attend college in some states.
How Universities Are Dealing With Histories of Racism
An important chapter of America’s reckoning with its racist history is playing out on college campuses. Whether it is pressure from student protests or findings by internal research committees, university officials are having to decide how to acknowledge or distance themselves from racist pasts.
One of the latest institutions to unearth troubling history is the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On April 19, the university released a report by a research group formed in 2017 by Chancellor Rebecca Black after three people were killed at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The report notes that several campus spaces are named for alumni who were members of the campus chapter of the KKK in the 1920s. It describes a past that included such “routine” acts as white students participating in “blackface” and the yearbook featuring anti-semitic drawings.
An important chapter of America’s reckoning with its racist history is playing out on college campuses. Whether it is pressure from student protests or findings by internal research committees, university officials are having to decide how to acknowledge or distance themselves from racist pasts. One of the latest institutions to unearth troubling history is the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On April 19, the university released a report by a research group formed in 2017 by Chancellor Rebecca Black after three people were killed at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The report notes that several campus spaces are named for alumni who were members of the campus chapter of the KKK in the 1920s. It describes a past that included such “routine” acts as white students participating in “blackface” and the yearbook featuring anti-semitic drawings. The report notes that several campus spaces are named for alumni who were members of the campus chapter of the KKK in the 1920s. It describes a past that included such “routine” acts as white students participating in “blackface” and the yearbook featuring anti-semitic drawings.
Universities must treat campus racism as more than a PR crisis
For the first time in my four years at university, it’s starting to feel like campus racism is being noticed more widely than by the students who experience it. I’m writing in the wake of “Punish a Muslim Day”, a concept that feels dystopian but one about which students at my university rightly felt it necessary to circulate an open letter expressing their concern. The last few months have seen a rise in overtly racist campus attacks reported in the media, which Ilyas Nagdee wrote last month are “just the tip of the iceberg”. Nagdee is right, but we must also consider the idea that these cases of racist chanting or abuse are isolated from university culture more broadly.
As many expressed shock at these racist events as they unfolded, most BME students I work with say that these incidents are not beyond the realms of imagination. Many of us have experienced versions of the reports we’re seeing, sometimes in glimmers, or in subtler, more insidious guises, but they are there all the same. I have heard reports of university racism occurring everywhere from club queues to lecture halls to therapists’ chairs. Sometimes it’s obvious, in the form of slurs or chants, but other times it’s in the form of profiling, lazy assumptions or structural barriers. But both overt and covert forms exist on the same spectrum of behaviours – on the far end are Nottingham Trent, Warwick and Exeter’s allegations, but for students to reach those extremes their beliefs must be nurtured by a society, and a university culture, that has condoned their behaviour up to that point. A group of boys would not wake up one day and decide to chant “we hate the blacks”. They would first have to believe they are in an environment in which they will be free of repercussions.
Universities are taking action against racist students – but is this the best route?
Universities are taking disciplinary action against students they find guilty of racist behaviour, but does this effectively tackle the culture of racism on campus?
The University of Exeter is the most recent institution to suspend students for racist behaviour after a group of law students made discriminatory comments in private messages that were later posted on social media.
A similar situation occurred at the University of Alabama earlier this year when a student was expelled for posting racist comments on her Instagram.
These reports can understandably spark anxiety about studying abroad, as students may be concerned they will be the victims of discrimination.