There is a serious stench emanating from the normally upstanding Hampton University campus. A sizable minority of the student body protested the first white student to be named Miss HU, and should be summarily chastised and rebuked for their infantile, racist and hypocritical stance.
It’s hard to reconcile their actions when, just up the highway from the Virginia-based school, an African American family recently took command of the highest office in the world for the first time in this nation’s history. Worse yet, many of those students who vociferously opposed Nikole Churchill’s win probably campaigned heavily for, and took pride in, Barack Obama’s successful and historical march to the Oval Office. Ironically, most of the students at this historically black university probably watched in disgust at the vile “patriotic” tea parties — mostly rabid white racists opposing Obama more than his policies — which cut a wide swath of ethnic strife through the heart of the nation. That’s what makes these Hampton students’ behavior so inexcusable and indefensible. They are replicating their oppressors’ debased behavior.
Many of the disgruntled students have spent their young lives overcoming and even thriving despite many adversities, racial or otherwise. Many probably still live with some vestige of anger or resentment in their souls at America’s dastardly depiction and treatment of them based solely on their race. In fact, the very reason why this iconic school was built in the first place was due to the fact that African Americans were prohibited from attending other colleges with their white counterparts during the apex of Jim Crowism.
The students should also be reminded that the school receives federal aid that can be revoked from universities that practice any form of discrimination. This law was enacted to protect the very black students who hated on the young white woman for having the audacity to win the pageant.
In fairness, the majority of students and faculty did not walk out of Ogden Hall when Churchill was crowned. It should also be noted that the HU pageant was a democratic process that was judged by five people, according to the Newport News Daily Press. This would include two people certified by the Miss Virginia competition, which leads to the Miss America pageant, and several other Hampton faculty and staff.
The episode is unfortunate because the students’ ancestors fought for centuries for the very change they opposed this week. It’s the same kind of change that swept Obama into the White House. The opposing students and faculty at Hampton should inventory their motivation for protesting the white pageant winner. For their president is being judged with similarly dubious reasoning. –terry shropshire
