I was under the impression that America had grown up a little bit.
If you read the posts that came flooding in last week on a Florida State blog site, fsuacb.com, taking direct aim at Florida A&M, and consequently, African-Americans as a whole, I’m sure your blood was boiling. I know mine was.
It started with someone, anonymously, posting a thread topic titled, “why cant the black girls shut up at the bus stop and on the bus.” Despite the grammatical errors, the topic brought to light many other issues.
To hear people, students in our own community, whom by good evidence by the posts, attend FSU, who come from all over the country and, according to the Princeton Review’s 2012 statistics, pay $3,397 a year for in-state tuition and $18, 564 for out-of-state tuition and want to call it an education.
Posting, anonymously, that all the black girls have AIDS, likening people to chimps and monkeys and instructing people to go back to Africa, among a whole host of other racially charged comments, sounds like society has taken a rewind to a subject I thought we handled decades ago.
Does calling someone a nigger make you feel any better? Would changing the name of FAMU to “the Leon County Zoo,” as was posted on the site, make you feel more a part of the community? Again, the lack of education and integrity, that’s the big one, is almost unbearable. My dad has always told me that the only thing that really ever matters in this world is integrity. Without that, you’re nothing.
And he was right.
The difference between FAMU and FSU is that while some ‘Noles are constantly flouting their high-dollar education, they are losing their sense of morality, and apparently a certain portion of them have lost their minds. At FAMU, most students are serious about, and value their educations and realize that there is more to life than hatred and negativity. I have neither once felt uncomfortable, nor been singled out for being white. And that is a fact. I hope to bring that to light and show you that race is only an issue if you let it affect you. You have to choose your attitude.
If you ask why would I attend FAMU instead of FSU? I have this to say. First, there is no journalism school. Who wants a degree in communications when you can be a real-live action hero, enjoying every moment until you pop? And if you really want to know, it was because FAMU’s School of Journalism and Graphic Communications took a group of students to Johannesburg, South Africa in 2010 to report on the World Cup.
If you feel people are too loud, well then they must be enjoying life. Anyone who wrote a negative comment clearly pines for an iota of that happiness. The best thing to do is be loud too. Jump in. Enjoy yourself; because cowering behind a shroud of ignorance and anonymity must be a terrible way to go through life. I am proud to be a Rattler. If you don’t like it, come say it to my face.