He just started college this week at Oberlin, in rural northern Ohio outside Cleveland — a liberal college in a conservative part of the country — so he’s not really getting his wish. A jock/frat college would have provided that real difference, but that’s so not his thing. Oberlin is pretty much jock/frat-free.

We did drive him to college, though, a 6-day trip on Highway 80, listening to Glenn Beck and Rush on the radio through Wyoming and Nebraska, and wondering what people thought of our pro-marriage-equality bumper sticker.

Caroline: As usual we tend to disagree. While I’m not saying the student can’t disagree in debates about philosophy, I am concerned that she isn’t ready to be with students who don’t share her value set at all, and she takes that difference personally.

One of the things about going away to college is that you move outside of your politically correct warm and fuzzy home base, and enter the Brave New World where your competition is only out for themselves and their clan. The new student has to find a way through this if she is to function in the marketplace of work and ideas.

This is particularly jarring for Black Students. Our urban schools do not bring it’s students up to comfortably handle themselves in an open environment which is why their candidates fail so much in work and career prep. The first thing you hear out of them is “uncomfortable” – as if anybody cares about their comfort. I want all the student candidates to succeed but the urban ones I see are not as prepared as they should be.

You are there to do a job. You will be going places (I hope) to do a lot of jobs. Increasingly more important and better paid. Dive in and deal with it. You don’t have to marry all these people but you need to learn what makes them tick.

So no sympathy from me about the comfort zones. Try Professional School.

Ever had the experience of taking students to an expensive restaurant and they “don’t like” the food? What do they want, McDonalds or KFC?

You’re such a dancer! You never respond directly to challenges.

But, as a teacher, most of all it is important that people learn when to use “there” and when to use “their”, because no matter how great your college, your job, your spouse, or your paycheck, you will come across as uneducated when you mix up the two!

If you think – and you do – that the way to progress here is to throw hissy fits everytime you think you see “racism” you will end up accomplishing nothing for yourself or for your clan.

Study history and study what works.

People in competitive schools are their to get the credential (graduate), to network, to get an advantageous marriage, and to get established on a career ladder. They are not there to play Joan of Arc.

The school years are an opportunity to study the people you will compete with before you have to compete with them in the workplace.

Dealing with direct insults must occur. Chasing after people and trying to fix them, change them, etc is not what you are there for. If you perceive them as the enemy you need to get close to them. Close enough to learn them well.

The “racist” cant is the sign of a weak mind. Weak minds have no place in a competitive university.

But college is supposed to be exchanging discourse, broadening horizons, having your views expanded, etc. How is that supposed to happen if people just meekly keep their mouths shut when they have a view that might enlighten someone else?

And Nextset, it’s ironic that someone who is not at all afraid to voice controversial opinions yourself, and try to change people’s views, seems to urge others to be docile, compliant, silent little mice and never disturb anyone’s equilibrium.

I also disagree that it’s a good thing to allow racism to be socially acceptable. As the song from “Avenue Q” goes, everyone IS a little bit racist, but there’s a huge difference between embracing and celebrating racism and making it distasteful and unacceptable. It’s bizarre to advocate the former, except presumably for white supremacists who envision a very different perfect world than most of us do.

From Avenue Q:
Everyone’s a little bit racist
Sometimes.
Doesn’t mean we go
Around committing hate crimes.
Look around and you will find
No one’s really color blind.
Maybe it’s a fact
We all should face
Everyone makes judgments
Based on race.

Everyone’s a little bit racist
Today.
So, everyone’s a little bit racist
Okay!
Ethnic jokes might be uncouth,
But you laugh because
They’re based on truth.
Don’t take them as
Personal attacks.
Everyone enjoys them -
So relax!

If we all could just admit
That we are racist a little bit,
Even though we all know
That it’s wrong,
Maybe it would help us
Get along.

The Jews have all
The money
And the whites have all
The power.
And I’m always in taxi-cab
With driver who no shower!

Everyone’s a little bit racist
It’s true.
But everyone is just about
As racist as you!
If we all could just admit
That we are racist a little bit,
And everyone stopped being
So PC
Maybe we could live in -
Harmony!