Race-based Facebook Controversy Stirs Minnesota Campus: The Facebook conversation that roiled the University of Minnesota Duluth in mid-April continued to reverberate last week culminating in an emotional forum on campus.
“What we see here is an escalation of vitriolic bigotry and racism,” said Helen Mongan-Rallis, who facilitated the Wednesday afternoon gathering of about 100 students, faculty and administrators in the Rafters, a meeting place on the top floor of the Kirby Student Center.
“The outrage [is] that White people would act so surprised that this happened,” said Mongan-Rallis, who is White and a native of South Africa. “For people of color this is not new.”
What happened was a conversation on the social-networking site Facebook on April 14 between two White female students after a Black female student entered the room, describing the Black student and referring to her race in derogatory terms. The conversation was posted on the students’ “walls,” making it available to all of their Facebook friends, and it quickly spread from there. One of the students has 786 friends on Facebook, Mongan-Rallis said.
