<p>Yeah, I find such a premise extremely bizarre. There is nothing particular about Rhode Island that is different than any other place. The population of the city of Providence is diverse. While the ethnic populations have been Italian, Irish and Portuguese, they now have a reasonably large Hispanic population and about 15% African American and smaller but reasonable sized Asian population.</p>
<p>I suppose RI could have some backwater hick towns, but how often are you going to be there even if they are these supposed hotbeds of racism, which seems extremely slim chances.</p>
<p>The area immediately surrounding Brown is mostly liberal upper middle class white who live in beautiful historic houses. Those are not your supremacists, they are professionals and college professors who drop in at Blue State Coffee for a morning Latte. But there are eclectic funkier neighborhoods at hand too. And one of the Portuguese neighborhoods is walking distance.</p>
<p>I think students are mostly in the College Hill ‘bubble’ on the East Side. There’s a busy life on campus and the student population is diverse. But it is easy to go downtown and most will get to the Providence Place Mall for shopping. Also everyone goes out to Riverfire. I don’t think my daughter got around much except to see bands at Lupo’s and bike the East Bay Bike Trail that takes you through some cute little towns to Newport, which is touristy once you get there. We went to Federal Hill (Little Italy) once for dinner together, which was the furthest she got from college in that direction. She is white, but I bet I would have heard about it if she thought she was in some crazy racist place. (We’re from San Francisco and not used to people like that).</p>
<p>Some students do work and volunteer in the community and likely get down the hill more than my daughter did.</p>
<p>I feel silly even explaining any of this.</p>