Bryan, a White 25-year-old student from a suburb of Dallas, tells how he considered racism and oppression problems of the past until he attended a university where black-face performances and similar racially-tinged incidents were commonplace. A turning point occurred during the 2008 election when a Vietnamese-American friend shared fear of being on campus as many white students were expressing anger at the election of a non-white president. Bryan was deeply struck by the difference in their experiences. “He didn’t want to go outside on campus, because he didn’t know how the students were going to react. I was like wow. Because I’m White, I had no clue what it was like for you to have to go to school and live on this campus during all of this… just kind of shock. Like how could I have missed it for this long?”
Parrhesia 