Thursday, February 24, 2011

A Minority Student Who Didn't Fit In

For the most part, this was a well-written article about the different approaches taken by different schools to help minority students feel welcome at a university--and ultimately stay and graduate. I was utterly taken aback, though, by the story of one student who left Lehigh and eventually went to Temple:

Feeling snubbed at frat parties wasn't the worst part for Nezy Smith. She'd watch white students drive around campus in their cars and see the slender girls trek up and down the hill on which the campus sits. Her family couldn't afford for her to have a car. And she had curves.

"That's when color came into play. I couldn't accept the fact that I was black," Smith said, recalling how this grew into a full-blown identity crisis by the start of her sophomore year.

Darren the Amateur Psychologist says that this young woman has some serious issues to deal with, totally apart from her education.
at

1 comment:

  1. Ellen K4:23 PM

    I am reminded of an old Bob Newhart episode where an angry African American man complains about the hatred he saw in "that white man's face." Bob asks him
    if that was the man he cursed at after running into the man's car in a driveway? The client said yes. And Bob concluded "They don't hate you because you are black. They hate you because you are nasty." Sometimes, in fact most times, it's not about race, it is about behavior.

    ReplyDelete