Noose- Racial Ramblings of a Black Mommy

In response to the noose incident at Columbia University... I was not surprised that it happened in 2007. I know racism still exists. I was more surprised of where it happened, in the heart of multicultural New York City. People up north tend to be more subtle with their racism. Down south, people are more bold, more "in your face" with how they feel.

While attending the University of Florida in the late 1980s, I had to deal with students hanging confederate flags from their dorm windows and on their cars, skinheads chasing black students with pipes, tenured professors who were hiring during the days when the college was all-white, and the formation of the White Student Union. When I returned to UF in 1997 for a half a year, things had improved, but there were still problems.

I believe that with each generation, things will improve as we continue to racially intermarry, live in integrated neighborhoods, and have more blacks moving up the corporate and political ladder. People are more exposed to each other's cultures whether they want to be or not. Sometimes you can't even tell what race people are anymore. The die hard racists from the civil rights days are still alive spewing their political incorrect views. Their children and grandchildren have managed to do things in a more discreet way, giving the (sometimes false) appearance that people are not as racist as the 1960s. It is amazing to see in my lifetime (I'm in my late 30s) that we have a viable Presidential candidate that is black and that even on the Republican side, we are being considered for such high offices. Many people looked at Colin Powell as a possible Presidential candidate. Now it is the norm for a person of color to be the secretary of state (national and local). This would have been considered far-fetched when I was a kid.

The day I know things will have truly changed will be the day when you can walk into an average suburban high school in NJ and see integrated lunch tables and black children not afraid to be smart and articulate (as opposed to be called too white sounding and acting). And I know things will have changed when there is not white flight when blacks move into a neighborhood. One of the most interesting cities in central NJ is Plainfield, where you have very poor black folks living on one side of town and wealthy people such as former Gov. McGreevey living in mansions in Sleepy Hollow. And they (wealthy whites) don't mind living near us, as long as they can afford to send their children to private schools like Rutgers Prep.

By the way, kindergarten at Rutgers Prep is $16,750 for the 2007-08 year, more than two to three times the cost of many other private schools in the area. I don't think you'll find too many blacks there, unless they are there on scholarship. The world of change in education starts in pre-school/kindergarten, and I don't think we are off to a good start with the economic and racial disparities in private school and public school.

Sometimes I wish adult life was like the innocent world of my four-year-old. He has started to notice that people are different colors. But to him we are like a box of crayons, different colors all coming together to make a pretty picture.

Dana Wilson
NAACP MEAB board member
Edison resident