I have more to say. Skin pigment, race is important and having a whole bunch of people who don't understand it in the first place is not going to help the situation. It is important and you can't realistically question the validity of the existance of racial prejudices until you've dealt with it. Another question: is racism part of human nature and should we just deal with it, or ignore its existance or significance (from Nate) Honestly, I can't really argue as to the question of if racism is a part of human nature, because I have no clue, however I think being told to "deal with it" is completely out of line. Really, can you imagine if you had've told Malcolm X to "deal with it" can you fathom the response? I'm not going to "deal with it" because I don't have to, I'm not going to take racist comments and "deal with them" regardless of whether it's part of human nature or not. I'm not going to take institutionalized racism and deal with it, because I want and deserve that job just like the next white girl. Honestly, I think being told to "deal with it" is what has been fed to oppressed peoples historically and what always makes it in the history pages is when they don't. What Nate said about not expressing racist opinions is a temporary solution, because even if you don't express the thoughts, even if you don't say anything you still think them, and they always come out eventually and that's the problem, so the real solution is to question, attack, and eventually, hopefully eliminate these thoughts based off of the fact that they are not true. Of course, we're not going to make everyone in Uni un-racist (?), but we can always try to at least help out a bit. On another point (sorry) when Bethany states that it's not Uni's place, well in our mission statement it says one of our jobs is "to influence positively the larger educational community." So, yes, it is our job. No, we shouldn't admit "less qualified" minorities for the pure purpose to display some superficial diversity, but, honestly, I don't consider myself "less qualified", when I came into Uni I was just as qualified as my white and asian counterparts, and even if I wasn't, it was not on account of my race. See, that's a problem right there, every minority being accused of getting in on account of their race. I didn't get in because I was black, and being accused of that shows that we do have a problem at Uni (although I do have to question why this has to be proved in the first). Just because a white person will talk to a "Native American" doesn't mean we have perfect balance at Uni. Honestly, the social structure of Uni High students is not horrible at all, students of from all races generally get along and if they don't it usually doesn't have to do withn race, there aren't any racial motivated violent outbreaks, you know, its pretty cool, but all of this is really just on the surface, because there's still a problem. Still, even though you have plenty of friends who are from different races, you can hear racist jokes whispered in the halls, I have, and it even happens in the classroom, like, for example, a bio video about Tourette's Syndrome featuring the usage of an extremely racist word triggered an outbreak of laughter. It supposed to be funny right? Well, it's not, it creates an uncomfortable environment which is not conducive to learning. So, to be told, that Uni's just fine, is really ridiculous to me, because I can see, that it's not, I know it's not, and I've experienced proof that it's not. As a final point, Uni is only racially okay, if you can ignore your race, if you feel like you aren't being reacted to because of your race, but, honestly, I can't forget my race, you won't let me, society won't let me, and I won't let myself. I'm not going to leave my race at the front door of Uni when I come in everyday so that I can feel comfortable and ignore the fact that you are being blatantly racist, and that's that, so if we want people in Uni to feel comfortable about their race something has to change, and ignoring our race shouldn't be the change, it won't be the change, the change has to be with the students their comments, their actions, their reactions, etc. See, like Alan Liang said there really is no definitive solution to racism, it will always exist, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore it, or pretend it doesn't exist, or "deal with it" we just have to fight back and something will happen.