Sometimes I just ask, "Why?", and shake my head. This has been one of those weeks.
I am a doctoral candidate at Miami University in Southwest Ohio. For all the Mayberry-esque charm, Oxford is a little town with big problems.
Last April a young gay man was brutally beaten with his assailant saying to him, "“F****ts do not belong in society.” Shortly before that in March, a Miami sorority desecrated the Underground Railroad Museum during an event, even defecating on artifacts being displayed. Last fall, three black students were approached by a man who told them that their kind did not belong in Oxford. And this spring, a gay student was beaten by a two young men, one black the other white. It seems that they've learned to share the hate.
You have to understand this background to get why I am so monumentally pissed off at what happened at an event in support of public education last Friday. Ohio is considering "charter universities" in which the state would cut funding while providing the university greater autonomy. A similar move in Virginia removed caps on tuition rate increases, leading to a "24% hike this year. That's one of the issues we were raising about this plan to make Miami a charter. So we have our event. And one of the college republicans tries to crash the event by putting on the blackface, and getting in people's faces. Just wait it gets better.