rticle 47
Students talk about race
At Chapel Hill, N.C., racial tension runs high. A special report
On the basketball court in New Orleans last week, blacks and whites teamed together to win the national championship for the University of North Carolina. But back at Chapel Hill, togetherness is a description few would use to characterize relations between blacks and whites.  It has been brutal,  says Associate Vice Chancellor Edith Wiggins.  There is blood all over this campus. 
The reason: a proposal to build a privately funded, free-standing black cultural center on campus. When school opened last September, UNC Chancellor Paul Hardin opposed the project, fearing that as has happened at some schools  the facility would promote separatism. In reaction, almost 300 students, most of them black, staged a disruptive late-night demonstration at Hardin s campus home. A few weeks later, supporters of the center held a rally during which several speakers spouted anti-white rhetoric. Adding to the confusion and turmoil: verbal attacks by militant black students on black faculty and administrators like journalism Prof. Chuck Stone, a well-known veteran of the civil-rights movement, who, although supportive of the center, questioned the demonstrators  tactics. Blustered one militant at Stone:  If you stand in the way of our progress, we re going to have to roll over you. 
Signs of trouble. For a few months, tensions eased after a committee appointed by Hardin came out in support of the center, prompting the chancellor to change his mind about the project. But now black-white relations are strained once again, this time by conflict over whether the center should be built on the main campus or just across from it IWo weeks ago, supporters of the on-campus site began a sit-in at the main university administration building, vowing not to leave until the chancellor acceded to their demand.
216	U& News & Worlcl Report
*1O	permission.
Large institutions, where self-segregation is greatest, are more likely than other schools to have had racial incidents.
ness and whiteness as opposin And all share the same distre bleaker dynamics of race whether it s racial epithets sen bathroom mirrors or assumptic their academic qualifications b( their skin color.
One source of nearly univc comfort: being constantly singl represent the views of all blacl
The continuing battle over the center is just one of many sources of tension between the races at an institution that calls itself  the southern part of heaven.  In January, for example, a sign appeared in a residence-hall lavatory:  This bathroom is no longer desegregated. No niggers allowed except for housekeepers. 
In an effort to understand the often complex relationships between the races at a university long admired for its liberal traditions, U.S. News recently conducted an intensive series of focus groups on the Chapel Hill campus. For two evenings, teams of U.S. News reporters discussed race relations with separate groups of 10 black students and an equal number of white students. On a third night, six members of each group came together tor a free-ranging exchange about the attitudes and animosities shaping campus life at UNC, which, in many ways, typifies race relations on campuses through-Fo,lowing three reports on the discussions at Chapel Hill
Jasme Kelly, 19, a sophomore ft ham, N.C., who attended a nantly white high school, says, every time I go somewhere witl person, something is going to racial.  That is why one of Kell friends refuses to associate witl  She says,  crackers ain t good in  but cheese.    Asked if this example of black bigotry, K others said it is more a sum resentment.
At half of the large sd white students feel that blacks receive special treatment that is not warranted.
THE black experience
Strangers in a strange land
M CKapel HU1 means sh ul-Sin? bUrden- In additi n to
APril I . 1993, pp. 57-58, 61-64.
That resentment has its roots riences like that of Philip McAdi year-old senior from Haw Riy When he stopped to visit a fr*1 worked in a campus building, tionist asked if he would sign basketball: Because he is tall ai and was wearing sweat pants, assumed that I was on the 1 team.  Kelly tells a similar tale o typing. When she went to a fra1 see a friend, the student who a the door asked her,  Are yoU apply to be the cook? 
  1993 by U.S. News & World Report. Reprinted by
M. Students Talk About Race
Michelle Thomas, a 23-year-old senior from Laurinburg, N.C., suffered an indignity of a different kind. When she arrived at Chapel Hill, she recalled, white  friends  from her high school treated her like a stranger. It was three vears before she made her first white friend at Chapel Hill. Philip Charles-Pierre, 19, a sophomore from New York City, added that when he is with white friends they seem unwilling to enlarge the conversation beyond their own world.
Often, black students just over 10 percent of all undergraduates at Chapel Hill-feel isolated from the intellectual environment because of what they perceive as subtle bias. Not long ago, for instance, the university provided space for a statue that showed a black man twirling a basketball and white students with stacks of books. African-Americans were insulted. Eventually, the statue was moved to a less central location. There are individual slights, as well. Before Carolynn McDonald, 20, a sophomore from Goldsboro, N.C., changed her major from premed to international studies, she told an adviser she wanted to take a second-semester calculus but was informed she didn t need to; the adviser seemed to assume McDonald would not apply to a top-notch medical school.
More  black.  Not all blacks, of course, have such perceptions. Kenneth Atan, a 20-year-old National Merit Scholar from Havelock, N.C., said his faculty adviser invited him to take his course in English and was helpful in other ways, because Allen had taken pains to distinguish himself as an individ-uai If there is racial bias, Allen argued, 't stems from black students themselves.   feels quite confident in his abilities said the criticism he gets usually comes from blacks who feel he should ^ak differently or be interested in other things or have more black ends.  In other words, they think that ne should act more  black. 
Economic differences are a partic-utaly sore point. Jasme Kelly told the ^1 while she worries about where 0 md $30 for the week s groceries, she ?es white fraternity members spending t ely on drinking sprees. And Vikkt ercer, a 20-year-old sophomore from  mvilie, N.C., said that her financial   ls a slow dance with penury, while $ ,te Parents  pay for everything and ejr children drive new cars every se-UoTifr s Just unreaE  Mercer is upset because whites have money but be
cause  they have no concept of what this money means.  In their own minds, several students clearly identified whiteness with success and couldn t see themselves fitting into it.
True or not, blacks also believe that whites have greater access to university financial aid, although Allen and two others revealed that they are on full scholarships. Three of the students turned down full scholarships to other elite schools to attend UNC.
At I out of 3 large schools, most whites have a physical fear of black students, while the reverse is true at fewer than 1 in 10.
Curiously, despite its divisive impact on the campus as a whole, the students felt that the controversial black cultural center was a force for greater understanding. Many agreed that it did more to unite blacks and like-minded whites than any campus issue in years. And, said Philip McAdoo, the BCC provides the incentive for blacks who often aren t very tolerant of differences among themselves to unite behind a shared purpose. At first, McAdoo said, he hadn t marched for the BCC and was criticized for it by black friends who questioned his  blackness.  But then he recognized an opportunity to educate others about African-American history and to heal divisions within the black student community. Those are goals that transcend the immediate controversy. As Carolynn McDonald puts it:  We are trying to educate not only ourselves but the larger community as well. 
THE WHITE EXPERIENCE
The double-standard perplex
For white students at UNC, the lofty view of the university as a bastion of reason where even the most contentious matters can be calmly debated is simply a myth. They live in a world where discussions about race can be a dicey proposition except among very close friends. It is a world where nerve endings lie close to the surface and where tolerance for dissent is in short supply.
White students in the U.S. News focus group said that even the simplest conver
sation with a black classmate can be fraught with anxiety. Jenny Johnson, a 20-year-old junior from Kernersville, N.C., worried about offending black acquaintances  and having them jump at my throat because I used the word  black  instead of African-American. There is just such a huge barrier that it s really hard ... to have a normal discussion. 
Lee Hark, a 21-year-old senior from Rome, Ga., who is president of the Interfraternity Council, said that writing a letter to the school newspaper criticizing the September march on the chancellor s house got him  stamped as a racist.  Hark, who views himself as a political moderate, said he was simply  trying to voice an opinion, but the feeling [among blacks] is that if you re not with us, you re against us, and that alienates me. 
At 53 percent of the large schools, editors say blacks feel that white students are hostile and aloof toward them.
Trey Ezzell learned an even harsher lesson. When the 21-year-old junior from Hillsboro, N.C., wrote a sarcastic letter to the Daily Tar Heel about a planned rally in support of the black cultural center, two black students knocked him to the ground.  Immediately, I knew the letter got published,  he said wryly. During the next several days, Ezzell, who calls himself  very conservative,  got nasty phone calls at his off-campus apartment. He even started checking his car before driving to school.  When someone is telling you they re coming after you, a lot of things change,  he explained.
 White boy.  Patrick Herron, a 21-year-old senior from Malvern, Pa., was among a small number of white supporters of the black cultural center who took part in the march on the chancellor s home. As the demonstrators joined hands, the black woman next to Herron turned and said:  I refuse to hold your hand, white boy.  Herron was upset, but said  you have to realize [that given] the history of race relations in this country .. . she s entirely rational to distrust me.  Besides, other blacks made it clear that she did not speak for them.
Like Herron, some in the focus group argued that whites need to make a
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9. UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL PLURALISM
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greater effort to understand the anger of black classmates. Jim Copland, a 20-year-old junior from Burlington, N.C., who i