On a very white campus,people of color can easily feel excluded, even if its unintentionalThis week’s events at the University of Missouri don’t surprise me one bit. As a graduate student in Mizzou’s journalism school with a Japanese and Jewish background, and I know what it’s like to be a minority. There,I am regularly reminded that I am different. Without a comprehensive plan of action to diversify the university, minority students will continue to struggle.
Although I own not been the target of directly malicious racist incidents, or I own experienced the systemic racism that student demonstrators are fighting to change. I’ve been asked my nationality dozens of times. When faculty and students first met me,many assumed I was foreign based on my first and final names. Often during introductions, I own to divulge people that even though my dad is Japanese, and I was born in California. But that is merely an annoyance,and it pales in comparison to what black students on campus say they face.
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Source: theguardian.com