Early this week my Google search results started lighting up with hits on an old post on White Student Unions. It took me a while to track down the source, but I eventually did — it turns out that someone was posting flyers at West Chester University advertising a meeting of a new white student group on campus.
West Chester, outside Philadelphia, is a public university of twelve thousand students. Its student body is about 85% white. As photos of the flyers circulated on Twitter, WCU students were upset and annoyed … but also skeptical.
As it turns out, they were right to be. University administrators have announced that there is no White Student Union forming on the campus, and that the flyers were a hoax. The intent, they say, was “to draw anti-racists together” — it was a case of good intentions gone awry.
The identities of the students who posted the flyers have not been released, and the university plans to take no disciplinary action.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that White Student Unions are pretty much entirely mythical — whenever they’ve been proposed, to my knowledge, they’ve been nothing more than provocations from one side or the other. I know of no instance in which students have established a WSU as an actual, functioning organization.
17 comments
Comments feed for this article
December 2, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Tina
I still think that there should either be unions for whatever group wishes to have them – including whites – or all groups defined by race should be disbanded.
December 2, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Angus Johnston
As I said above, I know of no instance in which students who were actually interested in setting up a white student union have been prevented from doing so.
It’s my experience, again, that a (non-racist) “white student union” isn’t a real thing, genuinely desired. It’s a thought experiment, a debating tactic.
I’ve often asked people who said they thought a WSU would be a good thing whether they could think of a specific purpose for such a group, and whether they would participate in it if they had the opportunity. I’ve never heard a plausible affirmative answer to either question.
December 3, 2010 at 9:25 am
RobS
I would agree with Tina. Also, we should be slow to assume the intentions of any student union group. I don’t assume that a Black Student Union (of which, a google search finds many at universities and colleges all over America) is engaged in any racist behavior. In fact, most all BSU groups would be open to whites who want to join or participate in some way.
I just don’t want anyone to assume that a “White” or “Asian” or “Hispanic” union of students would be any different.
It might have been good to let the “joke” run a little longer to see what popular culture or media types rush to attack the idea before getting the facts.
December 3, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Angus Johnston
The thing is, Rob, as I’ve said above, the kind of white student unions you’re describing just don’t exist. I literally haven’t found a single instance in which students actually started such a group, except as an explicitly racist provocation.
December 3, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Question of the Week: Do International Students Fit in With American Classmates? « VOA Student Union
[…] discusses a recent controversy at West Chester University over fliers advertising a “White Student Union.” It is common for U.S. colleges to have student […]
December 4, 2010 at 7:56 am
Captain Clarity
As a white man, I have lived my entire life being criticized for all the ills of the world, even though I wasn’t even born when most of these events occurred. If you watch so much as one hour of TV, you will see “woman smart – man dumb” commercials. There is no United Anglo College Fund. Funding for “Men’s Health Issues” would be declined, so nobody even tries. “Diversity” sounds great and the whole world is so PC that nobody even cares that “diversity” is actually a code word for “exclusionary;” everyone but white men. You are right Angus, nobody has ever started a white student union, because every college on Earth would close its doors before it would ever allow that to happen. Two simple flyers have generated a national controversy, proving that PC is unchallengeable and white is taboo. I have no special groups, I belong to no country club, no fraternity, no old boys network, I just go to work and do the best that I can every day to provide for my family, which, by the way is three women, whom I love with all my heart. I do hope that in the not too distant future, things will change and I will no longer be blamed for the ills that I had nothing to do with. I must add though, that whenever I see a white man espousing all that is wrong with white men and all that is great about everyone who is not a white man, I feel sorry for their pathetic pandering. It’s as though these guys are crying out loud “please love me too, I need to be accepted.”
December 4, 2010 at 11:14 am
Richard
This was not “good intentions gone awry,” you blithering fool. No white students were actually proposing formation of such a group, so some idiots fomented anti-white sentiments by making a false flyer. There is so little racism on college campuses that most of the major, racist headlines in recent years have concerned faked hate crimes.
December 4, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Jon
Nothing like word of a White Student Union to bring out racist views…against whites.
Sorry anti-white types but white college students have the right to form a real student union if they so choose for real. This fake WSU was a great test and exposed the anti-white racism on West Chester University, in universities around the country and in our culture itself.
And self-loathing white liberals need to drop the “institutions of white privilege” bullsh**. Not every white person is like you trust-funders and white liberal suburbanites…so don’t speak as if your world represents us all.
December 6, 2010 at 12:04 pm
david
Why is it that, when Whites gather, the assumption is automatically drawn that we’re up to no good or are not to be trusted? Notice, the automatic assumption in this case — as in other cases — is that a “White Student Union” is, by pure definition, a racist entity … while a “Black Student Union” is not.
December 6, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Angus Johnston
So tell me, Jon and David. If you could join a white student union without fear of being called a racist, would you? And if so, what would this group actually do? What kind of programming would it put on? What activities? What events?
I’m all ears, seriously.
December 6, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Zack Ford
I find that similar discussions are had about other dimensions of identity. For example, why isn’t there a Straight Pride group or a Men’s Resource Center?
Usually by the end of the 7-week Gender Justice course I facilitated, none of my students still had questions about why those groups/resources don’t exist. :-)
December 6, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Lisa
I believe West Chester Area School District high schools have Black Student Unions. I know for a fact that Bayard Rustin does. Why is that seen as okay if a White Student Union at the University isn’t?
December 6, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Bob
A friend of mine from WCU says that some of the Black and Hispanic Fraternities on campus were the ones who started the hoax. For what reasons I do not know but it is quite an interesting occurrence none the less.
December 7, 2010 at 8:31 am
Captain Clarity
Angus, I would like to reply to the questions you posed to John and David. The following are a few examples of what a “White Student Union” could/would do and stand for.
The first thing we would do is fight to END all racial student unions. The old people running our schools were young in the 1960’s, racial unions probably made sense at the time, but not in 2010. The racism of your generation should not be force-fed to the new generations. Little kids don’t think in terms of another kid’s color, but then, along comes the school administrations, forcing “color-thought” into all classroom literature and activities. We would seek to identify and challenge any materials and all school-sanctioned activities intended to put color on the stage or the forefront of discussion. You want balance? How about this: whenever you insist on reminding us of 1960’s black activists, we will hold rallies shining light on white activists who stood arm-in-arm with their black brothers and sisters. We will fight to balance the teachings of the civil war, so that all young people understand that it was white non-racist activists who waged war against their racists counterparts, it was the bloodiest war in American history and the American death-toll was higher than WWI and WWII combined! We already shed our blood to end the injustices. We almost destroyed ourselves from within.
We will bring to light that Dr. Martin Luther King is to be idolized and emulated for he was every bit the great man that Historians claim he was, yet Nelson Mandela was a terrorist who was NOT imprisoned as a “political prisoner” but was jailed for 193 counts of terrorism committed between 1961 and 1963 and his terrorist guerilla organization was found in possession of 210,000 hand grenades, 48,000 anti-personnel mines, 1,500 time devices, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate, 21.6 tons of aluminum powder and a ton of black powder. We will insist on full disclosure forcing the recognition of the fact that Mandela was the head of UmKhonto we Sizwe, (MK), the terrorist wing of the African National Congress (ANC) and South African Communist Party. He had pleaded guilty to 156 acts of public violence including mobilizing terrorist bombing campaigns, which planted bombs in public places, including the Johannesburg railway station. Many innocent people, including women and children, were killed by Nelson Mandela’s MK terrorists. Mandela should NEVER be celebrated on any campus unless you want more of the same.
We will form student review boards to verify the accuracy of curriculum. For instance, I went through the public education system and four different colleges, yet I was a working adult before I found out that in 1854, the Republican Party was formed to abolish slavery. It was the Southern DEMOCRATS whom they were fighting against. The Republicans, under Abraham Lincoln, won the war, which led the way for the elimination of slavery. In the 1960’s, it was primarily the Republicans who fought for and passed the Civil Rights legislations of 1964 and 1968. Senate, Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen rounded up the votes of most Republicans. Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Al Gore Sr. and Robert Byrd fought hard AGAINST Civil Rights. Democrat Senator Byrd is the former Klansman whom Democrats still call “the conscience of the Senate.” Byrd filibustered against the civil rights bill for fourteen straight hours before the final vote. The House of Representatives passed the bill by 289 to 124, a vote in which 80% of Republicans and only 63% of Democrats voted yes. The Senate vote was 73 to 27, with 21 Democrats and only 6 Republicans voting no. What’s my point? Just because our schools lean far left politically, this does NOT give them the right to alter history by leaving out very important historical facts. I am sick of schools and media always saying “Republicans = racist.” This is BS. It was the Republicans who eliminated slavery and passed Civil Rights legislations of 1964 and 1968, all against Democrats’ wishes. Maybe it would take a white student union to force this kind of truth in education, because right now, there are no white student unions and little facts like these are not taught – coincidence?
We will fight for equal funding. There is no United Anglo College Fund, nor should there be. There should NEVER be separatist funding denied to one group due to the color of their skin…in this case, white. I and many of my white counter-parts are sick and tired of having to pay out of our own pockets for our education simply because we are white. There is NO equality in this. If the claim is that colleges give preferred funding to white people, THEN FIX IT! For God’s sake, the schools very own finance departments are in control so they can simply fix their own internal problems. I have attended four different colleges and none of them had white people working in the finance departments, so where is this supposed racism coming from? Again, we will fight the schools to fix their own financial departments instead of giving preferential treatment to everyone but whites.
We would fight to eliminate all of these special programs designed for only Chinese, Native American, India and South Asia, Japanese, Korean, Southeast Asian, African, Latin, Chicano, Near Eastern, women, gays and people who prefer croissants over pop-tarts. This is ridiculous. School administrations create MUCH more separatism and inter-racial strife than exists in the working world. Go to the DMV or your local bank and you will see people of all colors and national origins working and lunching together every day. We will fight to END racial separatism on campus.
You were right Angus, nobody has ever started a white student union, because every college on Earth would close its doors before it would ever allow that to happen. We would fight tooth-and-nail to end institutionalized racism against whites from grade school, high school and college faculties and administrations. We will not ask for specialized courses that teach separatism like “Great White Leaders in History,” “White Inventors” or “The Impact of White People on Western Civilization.” No, we don’t believe in separatism. However, the schools do and I see more racial strife on campuses than I do in the rest of life in America. Students spend half of their time in school learning how to battle and debate differences between each other, then they graduate, get jobs and we all work together happily. We don’t have all these color-based separatist organizations in the workplace. However, many people carry the seeds of racism that were planted by the separatist school systems.
“Diversity” sounds great and the whole world is so PC that nobody even cares that “diversity” is actually a code word for “Exclude all white, heterosexual, Christian men born in America.”
Lastly, on the lighter side, we could organize large outdoor rallies in which we invite every student union of every color and we would have a theme of “E Pluribus Unum” From the many, ONE! All kinds of bands would perform, international food would be served, trinkets and artwork from every culture would be sold and students would be invited to give speeches on what unites us all, not what divides us. I don’t see this happening in my lifetime, but a white student union could do this, but only if they could get permission to even exist from the clearly anti-white school officials.
December 7, 2010 at 10:09 am
Clay Boggess
Although this group probably does not exist anywhere to anyone’s knowledge, the point that was made is well taken. Let’s get rid of all racially-oriented groups.
January 25, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Zoe
I heard about it, and I go to West Chester University. Honestly, I think it’s ridiculous that people get upset about students wanting a White Student Union. There’s a Black Student Union!! It exists…at Kutztown University too. And I know for a fact that students from any race are allowed to be in the club. So why is it ok to have a Black Student Union if people say it’s racist to have a White Student Union. It’s the students who want it. So get over it. It’s only fair.
March 27, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Mark
The reason white student unions don’t exist is because the University/Media/other students etc. would LABEL it and it’s members as being inherently racist.
How’s that for hypocrisy?
Anything that promotes/defends/even acknowledges whites or whiteness is portrayed as evil and racist while anything that promotes/defends/acknowledges (the exact same premises) non-white groups is recognized as celebrating “tolerance and diversity”.
Diversity seems to be OK, as long as it doesn’t involve those evil white people.