"The University of the Free State admitted its first eight black students into all-white dorms in 1992, two years before white rule in South Africa ended. When I tracked some of them down, their memories of this period were fairly rosy, but the contemporary black students I interviewed were unhappy. This was true despite the fact that by 2010, black students made up a majority of the student body.
In America, we are experiencing a similar phenomenon. By the numbers, our campuses look more racially integrated than ever. Yet we're hearing quite a bit about just how uncomfortable minority students feel. This year, 47 percent of Harvard's freshmen identified as minorities, including a record number of African-Americans and Latinos. But earlier this year, "I, Too, Am Harvard," a multimedia project created by a biracial sophomore, demonstrated how, on elite campuses, students of color continue to feel alienated. This came on top of the advent of "microaggression" blogs on which minority students from all over the country record the subtle denigrations they experience on campus.
How can it be that minority students seem unhappier when they have a larger presence within institutions that once excluded them?"
- Ikhide
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