(06-23-2020 10:02 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I honestly don't think we know nearly enough about the black house to universally condemn it (or applaud it).

As others have mentioned, Stanford has something like this in place. But there is an important caveat that I just learned (well, i really just learned about these houses in totality):

Quote:Stanford’s four ethnic-themed dorms — Ujamaa, Casa Zapata, Okada, and Muwekma-Tah-Ruk — have been part of campus life since the 1970s. These dorms depict themselves as living spaces that encourage residents to explore the culture and heritage of the group associated with it. They are not exclusive: at least 50% of the residents must not belong to the ethnic group the house represents.

But even with the requirement to have a mixed ethnicity dorm, it's not a clearly winning idea (see the rest of the linked article).

https://stanfordreview.org/inclusion-or-...with%20it.

HERE is where I come down.

There seems to be a significant number of calls for doing an awful lot of things... but most of them are a lot of show and not much substance. The above sort of alludes to something that likely had some great intentions, but (without reading the article) obviously may have still missed the mark.

The goals should be (and I'm summarizing... it's not for me to decide) to increase opportunities for African-Americans... to increase the acknowledgement of African-American contributions to our society... and to acknowledge the failings of even some of those whom we have held in otherwise high esteem.... but if we start requiring that not only do people have to do good things to be remembered, but that they have to be above criticism in perpetuity... we have a problem.... because nobody is above reproach in perpetuity and I think the focus is misplaced. Figuratively (in more ways than one) you shouldn't have to tear someone down in order to build someone else up.

I think the risk is very clearly what has been taking place for most of the last 100 years and certainly the last 50. A whole lot of 'talk' about change, but very little action. It might be different now in that there are lots of calls for 'symbolic' action, which doesn't guarantee ACTUAL action.