You have to be kidding me.
That, among other things, was the reaction of hundreds of IUP students this weekend as yet another stupid event unfolded in this otherwise boring town. This Penn columnist is rightfully angry, along with many others campus-wide.
It's not enough that people drive by shooting guns into the air. It's not enough that multiple students have died in the dorms. It's not enough that cars have been blown up within spitting distance to the HUB … twice.
No, now we need shootings on Philadelphia Street by a bar-hopping kid celebrating his 20th - yes, 20th, not 21st - birthday. Perhaps the street's name confused him into thinking it was OK.
But what may be the absolute stupidest part of the whole exchange is that it started with racial remarks from a black man to a Saudi-Arabian man, witnesses say.
While racism is usually only thought of as whites against everyone else, the IUP shooter managed to put on display not only how stupid the entire thought process is, but also how widespread it still manages to be.
Perhaps now IUP will take notice.
The March 23 Six O'Clock Series on racism, which was front-page news for The Penn, was avoided by IUP President Tony Atwater, to much criticism.
The general consensus among IUP students is that IUP is a little over its head with all the death and violence that has confronted us all this semester. Maybe there is nothing they could even have done.
What IUP can do, however, is make more of a conscious effort to stamp out racism on campus.
It is no secret that IUP is not exactly racially diverse. One look around campus should tell you that the people with different amounts of melanin in their skin tend to stick together exclusively.
One has to wonder if the Oak Grove has changed much since the 1950s.
Why, then, do we not see more efforts to bring everyone together?
Part of the problem is all the finger-pointing as to who is to blame. The fact is that everyone is at fault. White rednecks and their Confederate flags, black "gangstas" with their "hating on" whites, and the Arabs, whom everyone thinks are all terrorists, are all to blame.
That kind of thinking is infectious, and people of all colors have all proven to be entirely devoid of decency from time to time.
IUP students need to understand that racism almost always ends poorly. Throughout history, racism has proven to always hurt both the recipients and those who are spreading the hate.
Here at IUP, where people are being shot over race and the university president, himself a distinguished minority, refuses to show up to a dialogue between students and administrators, it is taking its toll as well. It's time we as a campus wake up to reality.
There needs to be more dialogue, more discussion, more programs and more real leadership if this backwoods town and campus are ever going to realize that it is no longer the 20th century.
It needs to be realized that a corner of Philadelphia Street is not a street corner in downtown Philadelphia and that the anger towards whites by almost every minority isn't helped by the constant N-words and camel references vomiting out of people's lips.
What IUP needs is a kick in the rear, but perhaps a shot in the stomach will suffice.
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