Posted on December 20, 2021

Too Many Whites Attend Campus Concerts, Says Oberlin College Newspaper Columnist

Tori Richards, Washington Examiner, December 17, 2021

The student newspaper at an Ohio college known for its left-leaning politics published a column decrying the number of white students attending campus concerts.

“When there are so few resources for non-white students on campus, it can be upsetting when concerts headlined by artists of color are dominated by white students,” wrote Kayla Kim, a first-year student at Oberlin College.

In the Dec. 10 column titled “Concerts Need to Be Better for Students of Color,” Kim claimed that whites, who comprise the majority of the student population, take over events by displacing black students in the front rows.

“It’s hurtful when white students do not hold themselves accountable for their actions in such a space,” she wrote.

The school had already taken steps to address police behavior at campus events, such as requiring a 30-minute behavioral training class and making students sign a form to acknowledge “different identities” before attending affairs monitored by “vibe watchers” looking for misconduct.

At a poetry reading hosted by a club called OSLAM, organizers asked white students to give up their seats for black students in the spirit of “black liberation,” Kim wrote. She interviewed a black student who witnessed this and left the event because it made him uncomfortable.

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