You will want to read this letter from a Penn undergraduate to a career counselor there. It begins:
My Dearest Aileen…
I have a confession to make, and I’m sorry that this is the way I have to go about it; I know the news will be highly disheartening to you, but I feel that it must be done. My heart just won’t let me hold back the truth from you any longer.
I’m white, Aileen. Not like Jason Kidd or Mariah Carey. I’m actually, legitimately white….
Read the whole thing.
Great letter. Why don’t I get such students in my courses?
A bit off-topic, but sufficiently related to justify a little rant: Do you know what drives me nuts? The so-called “safe rooms” for gays and lesbians at contemporary universities. No university at which I have taught has any history of endangering or threatening gays (quite the contrary!), yet they all have these damned places, which are clearly marked as places where gays can take refuge when they are under attack at school. It is stupid, unethical, and unprofessional to be teaching people to believe that they are victims because of the way they have sex, when actually nobody at the school has ever even given it a damned thought.
We have 30+ examples of this kind of discrimination… we’re thinking about filing suit. Ideas? Help? Please email me at editor (at) pennindy.com.