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Black Students at LSU Should Get Up and Leave

By Myles Minix
Black College Wire

Photo credit: Anthony Moore Louisiana State University fans display their flag.

It's truly a tragic situation for the black students at Louisiana State University. They are forced to deal with Eurocentric attitudes, bigotry and a flag that, for some people, correlates with a period when our ancestors were treated as second-class citizens and forced into slavery.

It's interesting that LSU's black student population is calling on the state's historically black colleges and universities –- particularly Southern University –- to assist them. These are some of the same students who raised their noses at Southern students, made every effort to refrain even from coming to "our side" of town, and who thought they were better than us. Now they are in trouble and expect us to care.

The audacity.

Why run to their rescue? What did those students expect from a school that was among the last to desegregate? If they honestly expected a school with a history of racism to roll out the red carpet and welcome them and their demands, they were sadly mistaken.

If I don't want to deal with racial issues at another institution, I'm certainly not going to attend a predominantly white school with a racist history. I'm not saying blacks shouldn't go to LSU. I suggest going wherever you feel your educational needs will be best suited. But don't go in as part of the minority, expecting a new attitude from the majority. And certainly don't expect Southern or any other HBCU to bail you out.

Myles Minix

The truth is we can't, not even if we wanted to. A united effort of every HBCU in Louisiana is not going to make LSU's purple-and-gold Confederate flag go away.

It's not going get more black faculty members and it's certainly not going to get money for a new African American Cultural Center. That flag, the limited number of black faculty and the slave quarters that black students have for a cultural center are subtle ways of showing the black population that LSU does not want them. If that's the case, do not support the institution by becoming part of it and going into debt to attend. Boycott it.

When buses would not let blacks ride in the front, blacks boycotted and eventually the bus systems gave in. Gather your black students, especially those on the football team, and leave. Send out a nationwide plea to all blacks who plan to attend a four-year institution not to consider LSU.

When our ancestors on this continent, they did not know the terms and conditions. Even if they had, it would not matter because it was not free will that brought them here. It was free will that brought the black students to LSU. I've been told the situation compares to a black person at a Ku Klux Klan rally upset at being called a nigger.

It's 2005 and racism is alive and kicking, right on the side of bigotry. Those things are permanent, and anyone who is realist should know that.

Myles Minix, a student at Southern University, writes for the Southern Digest.

Articles in the Voices section are the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of Black College Wire.

Posted Nov. 14, 2005