Scott Brooks’ letter from the 10th of November regarding diversity at Boston University questioned the University’s committment to diversity on campus. I would like to disagree with the authour regarding every point he makes.
Diversity is not only a question of skin colour. Nationality and cultural background add up to the essence of what diversity is. As a former international student at Boston University, I have been communicating with white and with black American students. They all were raised in the same cultural background and had similar views about history and politics. They were distinctly American in their thinking and upbringing, regardless of their skin colour. A campus with 50% American whites and 50% American blacks would be just as American as a campus with 100% blacks. The princeton review does target much more than diversity within one single nationality. All these 4000 international students who had crossed the globe to come here – they make up the diversity. American blacks and whites mat have different skin colour and history, but they were raised being American – in their understanding of McDonalds and Julia Roberts.
Mr. Brooks did not mention, that BU accepts much more black students than most universities – it is just that very few of them enroll. Why? Well, people like Deidrie Buchanon certainly contribute to that fact. If I was a high school senior asking about college campuses and am completely discouraged with one single sentence, I would certainly not consider BU at all. May be if Ms Buchanon had focused more on what BU offers, how tolerant BU students are, how many cultural organization BU has we would have had a little bit more black students enrolled – which would have eventually drawn more and even more black students… and so on.
What Mr. Brooks suggested about dating is that black females would have to go somewhere else to find a date – meaning that black females wold necessarily want to date black males and vice versa. During my undergraduate years at Boston university I have witnessed a lot of happy interracial dating. And if a black female would indeed go to another college campus ONLY because she thinks she HAS to have a black date – this is self-segregation, plain and simple.
I understand much about segregation and where blacks are coming from. My people were enslaved for 5 (FIVE) centirues by the Ottoman empire. But now is now. Circumstances have changed and we do not need to continue be haunted by ghosts, especially not in a liberal college environment. White students would assume that the black student is in BU on financial aid? This made me laugh out loud. Come on, how many of us, white BU students can afford to come here without financial aid? Not many, right? Scholarships, work-study and loans from all over the place would be needed for nearly 100% of the student body in Boston University. Please, do measure your words Mr. Brooks.
As an international graduate of Boston University, I am proud to have contributed to the DIVERSITY of its campus and I am happy that the Princeton reviewq had acknowledged the fact that in this college campus whites, blacks, Asians, hispanics, Native americans, and Indians from ALL AROUND THE GLOBE live and study together in harmony. And until self-segregation and anti-advertisement continues, nothing will help the BU black enrollment – not the BU high admittance percentage, nor the hundreds of student cultural organizations on campus.
Thank you very much for your attention. Alexandra Fol CFA 2002 Eastman School of Music 2004 617/359-2796 [email protected]