Racial Tensions at U. of Md.

Recent reports of racially targeted harassment -- specifically, a noose found hanging from a tree outside the Black Student Union headquarters-- triggered deja vu for me. During the Spring semester of 1970, I moved back into a College Park women's dorm I'd lived in the previous semester. It was in a quad of two men's dorms with a dining hall in the center. As soon as I got on the floor several dorm-mates rushed up to tell me that my roommate was Black. Seemed they were worried about that. Having been born and raised in the Midwest and my closest friend in middle, high school and now is Black, I was perhaps a bit naive about race relations. Beverly was already in our room, unpacking, so I introduced myself and started unpacking, too. I was a few years older but that didn't seem to bother either one of us. The College Park campus is huge and it had students of every description. Streakers did their thing in the quad and goofy stuff went on, but nothing nasty -- until someone fired a shot at the president of the Black Student Union. Instantly racial lines were drawn. A dorm meeting was called by the BSU president who was justifiably enraged about the attempt on his life. The tension between Beverly and me was palpable for a while, and she spent more time with Black dorm-mates. I felt ashamed because someone of my race was suspected of the crime. I don't think she ever thought of me as a racist, but pressure from her Black peers strained our relationship. It is such a disgrace that, after 37 years, there are still people who want to divide Americans along racial lines. Of course there are also people who want to divide us on ethnic and religious lines, but that's a whole other despicably, tragic conundrum. Next year it will be 40 years since Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within months of each other. That's half a lifetime! Have we learned nothing from these horrendous events? Discrimination of any sort is stupid, painful, destructive and useless because we harm our own civilization. The United States once represented freedom, tolerance and opportunity. Our reputation as a people is on trial here and abroad. I hope we can restore it before it is irreparably damaged. PEACE. . .