Kevin Kenealy
Pounce Editor

Keith Wise had a racist incident last year after leaving the African-American History banquet.

It was a Friday night and the then Eastern sophomore was walking to his car while talking on his phone by the apartments right behind the Martin Luther King Jr. Union. The moment, Wise remembers almost exactly.

“I remember a man on the balcony on the top floor on the third or fourth apartment started yelling, F U nigger! Go home nigger! And just a lot of different things with the N word.”

At first, he didn’t notice it. But after a couple minutes of being on the phone, Wise turned his head up and said it was the ‘N’ word again and again.

Shrugging it off, Wise got in his car dismissing the situation as ignorance. But the man would not stop yelling.

“He actually didn’t stop yelling at me until I didn’t drive out of the parking lot,” Wise said. “So that’s the incident that affected me and there were several other incidents that went along with the forum.”

A forum to discuss racist issues like these took place in that Martin Luther King Junior Union building in the Seventh Street Underground Feb. 7 this past year following Wise’s incident and a little help from the Daily Eastern News.

Following a Jan. 31 letter to the editor that called for heterosexual white students to “detest the climate of political correctness that demands your conformity” along with a link to a white supremacist Web site that ran online, controversy was sparked all over campus that yielded a huge turnout in the underground.

Quentin Frazier, BSU vice president at the time, estimated that more than 500 people showed up at the underground. Of which, at least 15 people shared stories at the open mic provided.

One student that took the mic said when he rode the shuttle bus when three black passengers got off the bus, the driver said, “They’re lucky they can even take the bus.”

Unfortunately, the following meeting that the Black Student Union had on the issue only attracted about 25 people, according to DEN archives. While the number was reported up since the previous week’s attendance it was hardly the 500-some at the forum.

While letters to the editor about Don Smith, the professor that wrote the controversial letter that sparked the forum, still continued into April of 2007 and while articles in the DEN have been done on JENA 6 and one or two on Don Imus, no big forums have been had since the Feb. 7 night.

According to Wise, this could be attributed to a majority of people just being concerned about themselves.

“Day after the incident happened to me, went to a leadership conference at Indiana University and the speaker there was a Latino man and he spoke about how this generation doesn’t take it upon themselves what they need to do and try to help each other,” Wise said.

Vice President of Student Affairs Dan Nadler commented on how we do lack a Martin Luther King Jr. figure in our world today as he had the charisma to reach out across colors and ethnicities.

While Nadler believes we lack such a leader, Wise believes that if someone sees that someone is trying to be a leader, that person will be there for support.

Looking back on the forum, Wise believes the DEN needed to print the article to get the ball rolling on the discussion of racism but also believes a lot of people were hurt by adding the Web site link into the story. This was a topic evident that night.

Daily Eastern News adviser Joe Gisondi defended the DEN, saying that it’s not the messenger that’s necessarily the problem and that people can help the DEN by getting their stories out there.

Sociology professor Janet Cosbey said that after watching a presentation in her family class on interfaith and interfamily relationships on how even though it may seem we’re comfortable with other races, it doesn’t mean racial differences don’t exist.

“Most college-age students will say they have a friend of another race and she’s [the student] arguing that’s not making everything okay, because it makes us not see that racism still exists,” she said.

Wise still works with BSU this year and hopes to work alongside Student Government and the University Board to get things done on the issue.

“Even if we were to knock out racism, think there will be a problem with the poor and the wealthy,” Wise said. “So I think it will be a problem that will always be here, but I think it will be a problem that you can lessen yourself if you can help people understand each other more.”

Keith Wise Watch as Wise talks about his racist experience and reasons he thinks we have racist barriers. Dan Nadler Watch as Nadler talks about Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in the world and how the administration is hoping to bring more diversity to campus. Bill Perry Watch as President William Perry shares his thoughts on racism and what can be done about it at Eastern Illinois University.

Podcasts
Janet Cosbey
Sociology professor talks about racism in the classroom.

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DEN reporter talks about racism on campus.