The UMass White Students Union: fact or farce?

A year ago in one of my wonderful, enlightened, intelligent Legal 250 discussions, I remember having a conversation about race. While discussing the benefits of student organizations like Latinos Unidos and the Black Student Union, one of my peers made a sarcastic comment that made me chuckle.

“How come there’s no ‘white club’?”

Well, as it turns out, there might be.

Founded, according to Facebook, in 2014, the UMass Amherst White Students Union “has been created to offer fellow white minority students a safe space for discussions,” which is touted on their Facebook page. Their “about” section promotes “safe discussions” for students of “European descent.”

Their mission statement?

The UMass WSA is not the only controversial “white” organization to spring up in recent months. Among commenters on the UMass page are the University of Arkansas White Students Union, the VCU European Student Union, the NC State University White Student Union, and, a little closer to home, the NYU White Student Union.

So.. is this a joke?

Likely.

The NYU group has already been debunked as unaffiliated with the school, and many other pages have already been shut down by Facebook. As for credibility at our hometown WSU, the UMass page touts a “second annual toy drive” with no evidence of a first.

Where other news sources have verified that some pages are run by students at the colleges they claim to represent, no such proof has yet emerged for the UMass White Student Union.

University of Massachusetts Vice Chancellor Enku Gelaye released a statement that the page was not affiliated with the university or any other registered student organization on campus, and has asked Facebook to remove the page.

Also, has anyone heard of 4chan?

Messages appeared in 4chan’s “politically incorrect” section recently urging users to create these fake WSU groups to, essentially, troll everyone.

Another possibility? These groups have seemed to surface after a white supremacist blog reported on the University of Illinois WSU being deleted by Facebook. The post urges readers to do the following:

“Make more of these White Student Union pages on Facebook for various universities. You don’t have to go there. Make one for Dartmouth, Princeton, etc. Go, do it now. If they won’t let it on Facebook, put it on tumblr or wordpress or whatever. Get it up, then forward links to the local media. Just fill it up with pro-White memes and “we’ve had enough of these people” rhetoric.”

Legitimate or not, the pages have garnered an all-out flame-war in their comment sections.

One comment from Irene Ravitz, a Hampshire College student, mentions that “the United States was built on genocide and white supremacy.” and is met with the response that “Whites are already a world-wide minority.” Other commenters bashing the group are repeatedly called “close-minded” and, yes, even “racist” by the page’s admin.

The comments get more and more heated as one ventures deeper into the void.

“It’s funny because the group really being oppressed here is the white race,” says commenter James Wilson, of Templeton, Mass. “We are bombarded every day with the notion that we should not represent our race, culture, heritage shaming.”

 

Posts calling the group out for “literally promoting genocide” and that “[white people] haven’t had to fight to be heard” are met with comments like this one.

 

I reached out to the people behind the Facebook page repeatedly, and received the following response: “We’ll discuss at our next meeting if that’s alright. Uncertain if anyone is willing to go on the record – threats and all.”

 

Following national advocation for education about campus diversity and racial equality, these pages have seemingly sprung up at places where that cry is heard loudest. Marches and rallies for racial justice have taken place numerous times at UMass this past semester, lead by Student Bridges and the BSU. The message is clear: address issues of racial inequality in the UMass system.

Chancellor Subbaswamy has scheduled a speech on campus diversity for December 3rd at 5:30 in Mahar Auditorium.

What boggles my mind, and the minds of many fellow students, is that in the event these groups are serious like the “original” at the University of Illinois, they are are fighting to be taken seriously while literally parodying themselves off the same medium of actual systematically oppressed groups. Just look at the Not Alone video that surfaced after LGBT marriage became federally legalized.

And if these groups are a joke? That’s arguably worse. Not only do the fake pages seemingly garner real-life support from people all over who actually hold these ideals, but their existence as a farce trivializes the real issues.

The problem with these pages is not their message alone, but that by essentially turning racial inequality into a meme, they seek to invalidate real movements and problems of racial injustice. Even if this page is a hoax, the Black Lives Matter movement is not.

Organizations like Latinos Unidos, Student Bridges, and the Black Student Union are not.

Colleges and Universities facing racially specific threats of domestic terror attacks are not.

The fact that a leading republican presidential candidate can repeatedly make hateful, repulsive, and racially motivated comments and still gain traction in the polls is not a joke.

By existing as a parody, these account suggest that racial inequality, prejudice, and systematic racism is something to be brushed off, ignored, or made fun of.

In response to the comment, “Why is there no ‘white’ club?”, my classmates and I laughed. We thought to ourselves that something as ludicrous as a “white” club couldn’t possibly exist. One student even commented “Dude, everywhere else is already white club.”

Perhaps we should have continued the discussion.