I think the university does the same thing by dividing its problems into separate categories that can be blamed on outside social forces. It doesn t integrate people into a community. It s just the opposite, it s a place that deepens social and emotional wounds. It dis-integrates people. White students have as much trouble integrating into our universities as black students, but we don t notice it because the university does such a good job of rewarding upper and middle class students with professional careers.
Blacks are just a tinted liquid that exposes cracks in the university s surface.
When societies lack integrative social mechanisms they split apart along seams in their social fabric even without racial problems. All-white communities like Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and Argentina have disintegrated without problems of race. That s why integration on campus is very much a white person s problem. If we don t have integrative campuses, very soon we will discover that our larger society is disintegrating. In 1967 Roger Rapoport, described an interview with Knox Tull, a southern black student who was graduating.