University of Michigan-Dearborn apologizes for segregated online "cafes"
Source: CBS News
The University of Michigan-Dearborn issued an apology Wednesday for creating segregated online student "cafes," one for White people and another for people of color, that it says were intended to promote discussions about race and diversity. A statement by the university near Detroit came after two virtual "cafe" events were held Tuesday, with one advertised as a "non-POC Cafe" for non-people of color to "gather and discuss their experience as students on campus and as non-POC in the world."
The other, dubbed "BIOPIC Cafe" was for Black, Indigenous and People of Color, and described as a space for "marginalized racial/ethnic/cultural communities to gather and to relate with one another to discuss their experience as students on campus'' and in the world.
Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said he understood the intention but "it could have been done better, obviously."
Ayoub said such spaces are created for students of color who have experienced racism to safely share their experiences. He added it's important that White students hear and learn from the experiences of students of color in these discussions.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/university-of-michigan-dearborn-apologizes-segregated-online-cafes/
Joinfortmill
(14,395 posts)keopeli
(3,491 posts)Srkdqltr
(6,228 posts)Home of Henry Ford and red lining into the 70s. How tone deaf .
MichMan
(11,869 posts)You do realize that Dearborn now has over 40% Arabic population right?
Srkdqltr
(6,228 posts)It is the largest Arabic population in the US? I think?
I don't live far from it and shop in the area from time to time (when I shopped)
Dearborn has a very nasty racist backstory. You do know that Camp Dearborn, the park near Kensington park, was for folks from Dearborn who didn't want to recreate with non-white folks?
Of course, Dearborn wasn't the only suburb that was like that but the most obvious. Fortunately things have changed there.
BumRushDaShow
(128,502 posts)Their "assumption" then is that neither POC students nor white students have brains enough to consider "discussing their experience" among themselves, and must have the supremacist's "permission" to go ahead and do so, but only with the caveat that it will NOT be set up by the students nor will they be involved in how this will be done and when - basically having complete control over what in the normal world, is a natural process, taken over by the power structure that created the mess in the first place.
Then when they are done "their duty", they'll move on and completely throw it on the back burner to forget about.