As you might have realized from the title, my point this evening has to do with the outrageous action taken by a white woman who called the campus police at CSU to report two young men she didn’t like on a tour of the campus she was taking. There have been a couple of diaries on this subject — www.dailykos.com/… is the most recent that I’ve seen and it has the bodycam footage CSU police released of the stop and talk with the two prospective students. The Fox31 website has both the bodycam footage and the 911 call. There’s also a good deal more information on CSU’s efforts to follow-up with the prospective students and hopefully prove that CSU is a desirable place to go to school.
I am in Colorado because I came to CSU for a masters degree program in Outdoor Recreation Planning and Management. I had choices of other programs, including Michigan State and Utah State, but I chose Colorado State because I’ve always liked the state and I felt the program would give me the best chance to put that degree to use. I was very pleased with the program at CSU, and though it took me a bit longer than my BS degree, since I basically wasted a couple of years getting nothing accomplished, I feel that it was time, effort and money well-spent, even though I ultimately didn’t go back into the field.
For two years at CSU, I was the volunteer coordinator for the Environmental Learning Center. As part of my duties, I had a monthly meeting for the volunteers in a classroom on campus. I often had a guest lecturer for the program, and some sort of activity pertaining to the ELC and the volunteer duties available. The most memorable of my programs, however, was something rather unplanned and it had to do with both Native Americans and the Raptor rehabilitation program associated with the University and the Veterinarian program of CSU.
One evening, I arrived to find the conference room we used for our volunteer meetings had actually been booked by the Native American Student Association for their own meeting. This particular night we were going to have the Raptor program as our guest speakers and they had brought three of their birds — an eagle, an owl and a hawk. They were prepared to give their standard program introducing the birds, discussing the way the birds would behave if fully healthy and why these particular birds were education birds — unable to be released back into the wild. However, without a room to have this program, we were stuck. We had about 8 people and the Native American group had about the same number. We were able to come to an agreement that wound up being very special.
The Raptor program gave us their program and the Native American group gave us their cultural history of how they relate to the different types of raptors. They told us that eagles are symbols of great strength and that’s why the two native to North America — the Golden Eagle and the Bald Eagle are highly prized for their feathers. Sadly, they’re sometimes killed in procuring those feathers, but as it is a religious practice, the federal government has allowed Native American tribes to receive and keep feathers from eagles that have been killed (illegally, accidentally, or naturally) and sent to a US Fish and Wildlife animal repository that is in the Denver area (I can’t recall exactly where). Only Native Americans and scientists who have filled out forms for studying the birds can request feathers and then possess those feathers. If you or I happened upon a dead eagle, it would be against the law (actually as I understand it, this is the case for all non-game birds) to possess feathers or body parts of those birds; I believe the law presumes that you were responsible for the bird’s death unless you can prove otherwise. In any event, you wouldn’t be allowed to keep the feathers or parts.
When it came to the Great Horned Owl that was present, the Native American students told us that their culture considers the owls to be evil spirits since they hide during the day and come out at night to hunt silently. I believe I’ve seen some owl artwork from Native American artists, but for those students that evening, they really were pleased to be around the eagle and the hawk, but they did not care for the owl. I remember that evening to this day, about 25 years later, because it really was an opportunity for sharing cultures and I learned some interesting things.
Colorado is still on what’s left of “The American Frontier”. Sure, Fort Collins isn’t the small city it was when I was a student there. It is within commuting distance (albeit it does take time) of Denver, so the sprawl and growth of the recent population boom has gone north past Longmont, started to absorb Loveland and now has brought a housing boom to Fort Collins. You can see elements of the old west on the streets of the merging cities and an important part of that culture is still the Native American tribes that live in the area, send their sons and daughters to school at CSU and that educate people from other cultures on what the west was, is now, and can help lead students and Colorado along in this 21st century.
I’m not happy with this woman’s reaction to having Native Americans on the tour with her. I doubt we’ll find out much about this woman. There are some comments describing her that were based, I gather, on the police report that are mentioned in the diary linked above. Yes, she’s apparently white, with blond hair, and while this certainly appears to have racist fears of “the other” as part of why she made the call, I hope all the uproar gets back to her and she learns a lesson from the University tour — a life lesson. Maybe she’s conscious of white privilege. Maybe she has no clue. Maybe her children can explain it to her.
As for CSU’s reaction, they reached out on Twitter to try and apologize for how this happened, what steps they were taking to try and keep it from happening again and they also offered to reimburse the expenses of the original college visit as well as pay for another, more positive visit in the near future. I think CSU is getting this right and I’m proud of my alma mater. I am not in favor of the University offering full scholarships or going farther at this time, because I don’t see this as the University’s fault. I think the police were professional and not overly-confrontational towards these youths, though I’d be hard pressed to see why even a casual bystander couldn’t wander up and go along with a tour. These kids certainly weren’t doing anything wrong. I’m also not in favor of the calls to ban the mother and/or prospective white student from campus. I don’t have the faintest idea whether the student from her family shares the suspicions that she harbors towards people with darker skin, but I think studying in a place where they can meet people, perhaps attend an evening program shared with Native Americans, and learn about their culture, might do anyone some good, not just someone who might be unsure of them. After all, school should be a place to learn about those different from yourself.
Well, I’ve rambled on a long ways.
If anyone would like to suggest a get-together for Kossacks, please suggest things below in the comments. You can have as detailed a plan or open a plan as you’d like — ideas would perhaps include when, where, and some kind of activity (e.g. lunch at a restaurant, a road trip to CSU for a tour, two hours registering voters at a table downtown or a shopping center) — the ideas are many, and they can be for any corner of our state.
If anyone would like to write for an Open Thread, please let me know as well.
As always, the floor is yours.