Too many whites attend campus concerts, says Oberlin College newspaper columnist

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/too-many-whites-attend-campus-concerts-says-oberlin-college-newspaper-columnist/ar-AARVkp9?ocid=msedgntp

The student newspaper at an Ohio college known for its left-leaning politics published a column addressing the number of white students attending campus concerts.

“When there are so few resources for non-white students on campus, it can be upsetting when concerts headlined by artists of color are dominated by white students,” wrote Kayla Kim, a first-year student at Oberlin College.

In the Dec. 10 column titled “Concerts Need to Be Better for Students of Color,” Kim claimed that whites, who comprise the majority of the student population, take over events by displacing black students in the front rows.

“It’s hurtful when white students do not hold themselves accountable for their actions in such a space,” she wrote.

The school had already taken steps to address police behavior at campus events, such as requiring a 30-minute behavioral training class and making students sign a form to acknowledge “different identities” before attending affairs monitored by “vibe watchers” looking for misconduct.

At a poetry reading hosted by a club called OSLAM, organizers asked white students to give up their seats for black students in the spirit of “black liberation,” Kim wrote. She interviewed a black student who witnessed this and left the event because it made him uncomfortable.

“People who came to just listen to poetry and not knowing the context of OSLAM overall were put in a situation that I feel they didn’t deserve to be in where they were subjected to this feeling of being treated differently because of their skin color,” the student said.

Kim also wrote a column about on-campus racism, which discussed how white students had complained on social media about feeling uncomfortable walking through black dorms. When black students responded, they were “talked over” and “experienced microaggressions,” she claimed.

“I knew that Oberlin, as a predominantly white institution, would have these issues despite building its brand and reputation on being ‘inclusive’ and ‘accepting,’” Kim wrote Oct. 29. “Furthermore, as a person of color, I already knew that there are plenty of white ‘allies’ who will say one thing to your face and another behind your back.”

The school made headlines in 2017 for schoolwide demonstrations and boycotts against a local bakery for calling the police on a shoplifter who was black. Gibson’s Bakery was accused of racism at the time, even as the shoplifter was charged and pleaded guilty. The school subsequently lost a libel lawsuit brought by the bakery and was ordered to pay the business $31.6 million.