Race relations on campus have been, to be frank, a little tense. As a white male, it has been really eye-opening to see the challenges people of color face in areas even as liberal as Cornell. Luckily, it seems that those racist blips that occurred a few weeks ago are a thing of the past, as no one has said the n-word directly to me in the past week.
This is not to say that I haven’t used the n-word recently. When it comes up in a song, I can’t help but belt out that very specific and controversial word very loudly. After aggressively demanding that my black friend take my side on the issue, he finally agreed I could say the n-word in a song if it meant I would leave him alone while he studied for a prelim. But what I’m trying to say is, no one has directed the n-word at me.
It goes without saying that I have heard others on campus use the n-word. In fact, I’ve heard it used so frequently that I even felt a little disappointed. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty clear to me that these issues have dissipated, as I had a total of zero personal confrontations in which the n-word was used in the last seven days.
Is there anything else our community can do to fight racism? No. We’ve made pretty serious progress on this divisive issue. As I’ve mentioned before, no one has called me the n-word or directed the word to me—and I find this satisfactory. Let’s go Big Red!
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