On February 25, a New York Times front-page story exposed a specious incident of alleged racial harassment at Smith College. In July 2018, Oumou Kanoute, a black student who had grown up in Manhattan but whose parents came from Mali, claimed to have experienced a near-“meltdown” because both a janitor and a campus police officer asked what she was doing in a dormitory lounge as she lunched there. She viewed their interruption of her meal as an “outrageous” sign that some Smith personnel questioned her presence at the College, and indeed her very “existence overall as a woman of color.” She also disclosed her terror at the possibility that the police officer might have been carrying “a lethal weapon.”
Not surprisingly, given the recent political environment on American
campuses, Smith’s president Kathleen McCartney immediately issued an
apology for the incident and put the janitor on paid leave,
remarking—prior to any investigation—that the incident served as a
painful reminder of “the ongoing legacy of racism and bias … in which
people of color are targeted while simply going about their daily
business.”.........To Read More...
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