Interesting comments and observations

– At Illinois Wesleyan College, an African American student expressed how he wants to stop living his grandfather’s life. No matter how much he tries to convince grandpa how much things have changed, grandpa keeps telling him how to look at everything through a racial lens.

– At another university, the African Students Union (ASU) parted ways with the Black Students Union (BSU) because they felt the BSU’s goals were political, therefore parochial, while the ASU’s was cultural, therefore inclusive.

– In Lewiston, Maine, in response to advocacy for a playground for Somali refugees, the town, apparently by instinct, built them a basketball court—the kids played soccer, not basketball.

-At the New Jersey state museum, a black Southern male shared how he feels closer in culture with African and Caribbean blacks than he does with Northeastern African Americans.

-At one liberal arts college, an administrator realized that many of their black students were not really African American, according to his four-grandparent test.

-I asked one lady, “Are you African-American?” Her response: “Yes. Since last year. When I got my citizenship.”