<p>I hope parents of prospective students place these “incidents” in proper perspective, and not let it influence their opinion of Oberlin College. These types of incidents are extraordinarily rare at Oberlin. There are few colleges in America that don’t have similar types of “incidents.” Example, at Lehigh University, the election of President Obama in 2008 triggered direct harassment of black students by their right wing white classmates ON CAMPUS! Forget about outside agitators and hate mongerers. How about being afraid of your classmates? I live close to that campus and read all about it. Talk about campus churn, hastily called student and administrator peace meetings. There is much, much worse stuff happening. After all, this is America. I watched a video tape of Black Students at Bowdoin complaining about the racism on campus from fellow students. </p>
<p>Before deciding that Oberlin must not be such a great place because of these, frankly, relatively tame “hate incidents” (I say that and I’m black) and encourage your child to look elsewhere, dig deep into the archives of other college newspapers and local town/city news and you’ll uncover all sorts of stuff and much of it will not be all that old. It’s just not in the news right now. It’s forgotten, just like these incidents at Oberlin by outsiders will be in a couple of years. </p>
<p>My D is a senior at Oberlin. She loves the school and has never experienced any issues from students or townies, on campus or off. A year or two ago, someone was painting anti-gay and anti-black slurs on benches and buildings, sparking the usual campus uproar, with exclamations of “how could this happen here?” The perpetrator turned out to be a black, gay Oberlin student. I’d call it an unfortunate example of self-hatred that can occur anywhere.</p>
<p>Again, this is America. Unfortunately, this stuff happens all over this country. But it doesn’t happen as often at Oberlin as it does at other schools. It happens so often at other schools it doesn’t even make the local news. At Oberlin, a single “N” word scrawled on the inside of a toilet stall sends people rushing into the streets in emotional turmoil. Okay, a slight exaggeration, but I hope you get my point.</p>