XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: og@barackobama.com   
      
   ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A brochure for the University of Michigan   
   features a vision of multicultural harmony, with a group of   
   students from different racial backgrounds sitting on a verdant   
   lawn, smiling and conversing.   
      
   The scene at the undergraduate library one night last week was   
   quite different, as hundreds of students and faculty members   
   gathered for a 12-hour “speak out” to address racial tensions   
   brought to the fore by a party that had been planned for   
   November and then canceled amid protests. The fraternity hosting   
   the party, whose members are mostly Asian and white, had invited   
   “rappers, twerkers, gangsters” and others “back to da hood   
   again.”   
      
   Beyond the immediate provocation of the party, a sharp decline   
   in black undergraduate enrollment — to 4.6 percent of the   
   student body in 2013 from 6.2 percent in 2009 — and a general   
   feeling of isolation among black students on campus have   
   prompted a new wave of student activism, including a social   
   media campaign called “Being Black at the University of   
   Michigan” (or, on Twitter, #BBUM). Members of the university’s   
   Black Student Union have petitioned campus administrators to,   
   among other things, increase enrollment of black students to 10   
   percent.   
      
   Similar episodes and tensions have unsettled colleges including   
   Arizona State; the University of California, Los Angeles; the   
   University of Mississippi; and Dartmouth.   
      
   In the news media and in popular culture, the notion persists   
   that millennials — born after the overt racial debates and   
   divisions that shaped their parents’ lives — are growing up in a   
   colorblind society in which interracial friendships and   
   marriages are commonplace and racism is largely a relic.   
      
   But interviews with dozens of students, professors and   
   administrators at the University of Michigan and elsewhere   
   indicate that the reality is far more complicated, and that   
   racial tensions are playing out in new ways among young adults.   
      
   Some experts say the concept of being “postracial” can mean   
   replicating some of the divisions and insensitivity of the past,   
   perhaps more from ignorance than from animus. Others find   
   offensive the idea of a society that strips away deeply personal   
   beliefs surrounding self-identification.   
      
   “There’s this preconceived notion that our generation is   
   postracial, but there’s these incidents that happen constantly   
   that disprove that point,” said Zach Fields, a business major   
   here, who is white. He attributed many high-profile incidents —   
   including a number of fraternity parties nationwide that have   
   used racist symbols, including watermelons and gang signs — to   
   ignorance.   
      
   “I feel like they don’t mean to be so offensive,” Mr. Fields,   
   20, said of the party organizers. “It’s not a conscious racism.   
   It’s subconscious.”   
      
   Tyrell Collier, 21, the speaker of the Black Student Union, who   
   is majoring in sociology and Afro-American and African studies,   
   said racial tensions on campus had been mounting for months.   
      
   “There was a very tense climate brewing all semester, and I   
   think the party was just the peak,” he said. Mr. Collier added   
   that his group, which spearheaded the popular social media   
   campaign, had received inquiries from other black student groups   
   around the country looking to use similar tactics.   
      
   “We’re clearly not postracial,” said Tiya A. Miles, chairwoman   
   of the department of Afro-American and African studies.   
   “Sometimes I wonder if having a black president lets people feel   
   like that gives them cover. It absolves people of being   
   prejudiced.”   
      
   The number of complaints related to race and ethnicity filed   
   against colleges and universities rose to 860 in 2013 from 555   
   in 2009, according to the Office for Civil Rights at the federal   
   Education Department. Some experts believe that the increase   
   reflects, at least in part, the role of social media in creating   
   and then publicizing episodes.   
      
   Students nationwide responded to a reporter’s request on   
   Facebook and Twitter for stories about racial issues on college   
   campuses. The experiences they described ranged from overt   
   racism to more subtle forms of insensitivity.   
      
   Charles Tkacik, a freshman at Johnson & Wales University in   
   North Miami, Fla., who is white, said in an email that while   
   public demonstrations of racism were rare at his university,   
   “there is a deep layer of contempt and hatred among a percentage   
   of students toward other races.”   
      
   “Some students believe certain races to be ‘dirty, noisy and   
   rude,’ ” Mr. Tkacik wrote.   
      
   Jordan Taylor, a black student at the State University of New   
   York at New Paltz, shared a photo of a “colored only” sign that   
   had been placed on a water fountain in his freshman year.   
      
   A black student at Princeton said a racial epithet was once   
   scrawled on his dorm room door. A Korean-American student at the   
   University of Minnesota described being asked by her classmates   
   if she “did massage” or “wore a kimono at home.”   
      
   Race is very much an open issue at the University of Michigan.   
   In 2006, Michigan residents voted in favor of Proposition 2,   
   which prohibited affirmative action based on race or ethnicity   
   in admissions and hiring at public institutions. The Supreme   
   Court is expected to rule on the measure this year. These issues   
   are playing out when the minority population is growing   
   nationwide but shrinking on some college campuses.   
      
   “I think there is no question that Prop 2 has made it much more   
   challenging for us,” Martha E. Pollack, the university provost   
   and executive vice president for academic affairs, said of the   
   affirmative action vote. “It was difficult to be the kind of   
   community that we wanted to be even when we could use   
   affirmative action.”   
      
   Alex Ngo, 21, who is majoring in communications, rejected the   
   notion of colorblindness. “When I hear people say, ‘We’re all   
   people, we’re all human, I don’t see color,’ to me that means,   
   ‘I don’t see you, you don’t exist,’ ” he said. Mr. Ngo, who is   
   Chinese and gay, said he had been subjected to racist and   
   homophobic epithets.   
      
   Some students, like James Rice, 21, who is white, see being   
   colorblind as a worthy goal in certain situations. If race is   
   something “not taken into consideration in society in places   
   like education and the workplace, I feel like it’s a really good   
   goal,” Mr. Rice said.   
      
   But many others said that failing to account for the reality of   
   race created an unrealistic view of the world.   
      
   Gurdit Suri, 19, a finance and international studies major who   
   described himself as a “turban-wearing Sikh,” said he often felt   
   judged by fellow students. “It doesn’t matter how many awards I   
   can get, how many tests I can take, how many times I volunteer,”   
   he said. “I am the other to a lot of people in this campus.   
   People will make judgments about me, implicit or not.”   
      
   For many students, racial issues play out as they did for   
   previous generations, as a constant attempt to bridge an often-   
   subtle divide. Nikia Smith, a black freshman, said tensions   
   could be woven into the fabric of daily life — for example, if a   
      
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