By now, the writers for “Dear White People” probably have the episode in the can about a freaked-out white woman dialing 911 to report that two terrifyingly quiet guys in rock band T-shirts had the audacity to join a college campus tour.
It’s a perfect storyline for a TV series that peels away the veneer of post-racial Ivy League pretensions to see the anxieties raging barely beneath the surface among college students and their neurotic helicopter parents.
After April 30 the incident hit the national media, Colorado State University President Tony Frank tried to extinguish what was sure to be a fast-moving public relations conflagration with an unequivocal defense of the young members of the Mohawk tribe who had driven to Fort Collins from their home in New Mexico only to be pulled off the tour and questioned by police.
Frank provided absolutely no cover for those who might suggest that such blatant racial profiling is acceptable.
“People of all races, gender identities, orientations, cultures, religions, heritages, and appearances belong here,” he said in his blistering public statement. For those contemplating enrolling at CSU, “if you’re uncomfortable with a diverse and inclusive academic environment, then you probably have a better fit elsewhere.”
I have no idea what colleges advertise that they’re the perfect fit for students whose mothers are afraid of brown-skinned people, but I’m sure they’re out there.
Still, despite criticism and ridicule, most universities heroically attempt to create environments that are in most ways diverse and welcoming.
Meanwhile here in the real world, racial, ethnic, religious, gender and, face it, raw political bigotry is on lurid display every day from Facebook to the White House.
I’m exhausted by the constant barrage on social media from people who crow unabashedly about their visceral hatred for Republicans, Democrats, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Mexicans, billionaires, coastal elites, Midwest un-elites or anybody who dares to think, look, act or even smell differently.
(Yes, I freely admit I’m rooting for the Nigerian woman who recently filed a lawsuit against United Airlines because she was removed from a flight after a passenger complained that she smelled “pungent.” C’mon, who doesn’t after 36 hours of airline travel?)
It’s so easy to categorize human beings and then casually dismiss them as inferior or dangerous. It’s the 21st-century version of Jim Crow, legislated by Tweet and enforced by hearsay, hate-speech and shameless trolls instead of people wearing white hoods.
So, call it populism or resistance or a post-9/11 abundance of caution. What it is really is ignorance. And it’s rigidly isolating and destructive.
While I don’t know of any sure-fire cure for this widespread human condition, a lovely stranger I encountered recently taught me a lesson in something that just might help.
We were in the customer service line at an electronics store and suddenly she slipped her phone in her pocket, smiled at me and said hello. She asked me a few questions about myself and we had a nice chatty conversation as the techs puttered away on our laptops.
When we got up to leave, she said she recently had read that loneliness was a bigger cause of death in America than obesity or cigarette smoking. She started looking around and noticed that everywhere she went, people were staring at their phones, utterly alone and withdrawn from those all around them.
So she decided to start reaching out to people in small ways every day.
Now, I don’t have a clue if she was a Muslim, a Libertarian or a gun-toting transgendered member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, but I loved her instantly for how she made me feel that day. She was my friend.
Thanks to a smile and a gracious gesture from a fellow human, I felt like I lived in a gentle, non-judgmental, post-racial world, if only for a moment.
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant and a regular columnist for the Denver Post.
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