Universities Churn Racial Tension

I’m a student of mixed ethnic origin at the University of Virginia, and I can’t help but wonder: Does the university value only the minority side of me?

It couldn’t possibly be both sides of me with what I’m being taught, because the university system spews separation and confusion by encouraging a hypersensitive racial environment.

I grew up on a farm in rural southwest Virginia, learning to love the culture of hard work and humility alongside Judeo-Christian values. I cannot leave this part of me even if I wanted to, and why should I? I recognize that the values of predominantly white regions of America are ones that have left a mark for good on me.

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At the same time, my last name is Hernandez. I also grew up steeped in the Spanish culture: language, music, and food. From as far back as I can remember, second-generation immigration culture permeated my thoughts and actions. I learned to appreciate the stark contrast between a country like America, where rule of law is held in high regard, versus a country like Venezuela, where only the well-connected or strong thrive.

But at college, the positive lessons and values from dual heritage are not praised, taught or celebrated. Instead, efforts of “inclusion” drive an emphasis on separation and differences.

A Culture of Separation
We feel it every day on campus. Flyers circulate asking to students to join the Black Student Union or to go to seminars about how Asian-American students struggle. These student groups, encouraged by Left-wing professors, wish to be a part of the victim class. The “I am not a model minority” initiative is one promoted by the Asian student union at UVA. Their goal is to overcome the Model Minority Myth, which they say flattens the heterogeneity of the diverse pan-ethnic experiences and identities of Asians and Asian-Pacific Islanders.

The Teaching of Separation
Professors increasingly appear to find it in their job description to encourage separation, using their position to dishonestly present situations in the context of racial conflict. “Don’t you see how bad (insert race) was, don’t you see analogies to today?” ” See how this religion hurt these people?”

[lz_infobox]This piece is part of a CampusZette series exploring the culture, oddities and experiences of students on college campuses through their eyes.[/lz_infobox]

Professors teach that the actions of the often-distant past should haunt our thoughts indefinitely. Thank goodness we have professors to tell us what is right and wrong, and to pontificate on current affairs through the minute lens of their subject of expertise.

“White people act like this, African-people are like this, Asian people don’t want to be this,” is the racial identity takeaway of history and sociology class.

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A Culture of Obsession
We are obsessed with the material, what clothes we wear, how much we weigh, what club or Greek organization we join. But the university adds additional obsessive distinctions with race and gender. On the one hand, we are taught not to judge others and not to “see skin color,” yet on the other, we’re taught to think in terms of racial identity.

The Office of Minority Affairs
There is an entire administrative office with the sole purpose of emphasizing and allegedly correcting disparities between the majority of the student population and the minority.

I think of Hoover Institute Fellow Thomas Sowell’s insightful take: “Any process to ascribe status to any group of people must necessarily reduce freedom, whatever place the government wishes to assign to people, that place will not coincide either with what all those people are doing, or what people are perceived as doing.”

Classes on White Privilege
Whatever the intent of the class, the effect is racial division. Indicating that certain races are born acting a certain way, that all minority races experience the same biases, and that all whites live under a veil of privilege is the surest way to perpetuate distrust.

Affirmative Action for Students and Professors
Our university system mandates de facto quotas for black and minority professors on the basis of their race. But doesn’t this create a minority privilege when we are so often fixated on white privilege? Instead of competing for a spot at the best school, or the best office, of the best research, we are now entitled or unentitled due to our skin color and ethnic heritage.

These are the unintended consequences of theoretical policy positions, often well-intentioned, put to work in the real world of the university system. More simply put, the unintended consequences of a world made hyper aware of race. As a student of mixed ethnic origin, and simply a human being, I have found I would like to be judged by my character, not the color of my skin.

John Hernandez is a junior at the University of Virginia.