Campus Dialogue

Lucy: My friend, Carlos, is a person of color. He is currently attending college to get a degree in Engineering.

Mike: What did you just say? Did you just say Person of color?

Lucy: Yeah, why?

Mike [looking around nervously]: Are you sure that’s not racist?

Lucy: No, that’s the correct term now.

Mike: Are you sure, it sounds a lot like colored person.

Lucy: Oh my god, did you just say colored person?

Mike: Yeah, but just as a reference to what you were saying.

Lucy: I think you have some racial biased to work on Mike.

Mike: What!? Colored person and person of color is the same thing. If one is racist so is the other.

Lucy: That’s not true. Colored person puts the color of the person first, while person of color puts the person first. See totally different.

Mike: No, it really is not that different. Referring to someone as a colored person or a person of color puts emphasize on color. We should all be trying to look past the color to the person. I mean I don’t see color.

Lucy: Mike! I never knew you were such a racist! You need to check your privilege. I should have known, you are a white male after all.

Mike: What are you talking about? I’m not racist, we’ve known each other since we were five years old. We even had a Hispanic friend on our street that we both hung out with.

Lucy: See, just what a racist would say.

Mike: What?

Lucy: A racist would say, “See I’m not racist, I have a friend who is Hispanic”. Just what a racist person would say.

Mike [In a calm voice]: Lucy are you okay, you are making no sense.

Lucy: I’m just so shocked that someone I have known for so long is a racist. Next thing I know you’ll say the wage gap isn’t real.

Mike [looks back and forth for a moment]: It isn’t real. The wage gap is determined by people’s personal choices in careers.

Lucy: You’re a misogynist too! I can’t believe it, I’ve been friends with a Nazi for so long.

Mike [Laughing]: A Nazi? That’s funny, there is no way I’m a Nazi.

Lucy: You just said Nazi things and if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…

Mike [Grinning]: Then it must be a Nazi.

Lucy: This isn’t funny Mike, you need to take this seriously. I think you need to go to sensitivity training.

Mike: Fuck that, I’m not doing that.

Lucy: Mike if you ever cared about me then you will go to sensitivity training.

Mike: Why? Just because I said People of Color and Colored People is the same thing.

Lucy [screams]: They are not the same thing. You need to get educated.

Mike: You mean reeducated, right? No thanks.

Lucy: I can’t believe you think this is a big joke. People are being killed and you are making jokes.

Mike: Who is being killed?

Lucy: LBGTQIA+ people, people of color (Mike: colored people), and women.

Mike: So basically anyone who isn’t white and male and straight.

Lucy [hissing through clenched teeth]: Yes, because the patriarchy runs everything and it protects straight white cis-gendered men at the expense of everyone else.

Mike: Of course it does. I forgot about my patriarchy meeting later this week, thanks for reminding me.

Lucy: You still don’t care. You don’t care about all these people being slaughtered in the street simply because they are different.

Mike [Looks around at the empty street]: Oh man, the bodies are everywhere. I can’t believe I couldn’t see it before. Thank you Lucy for your screeching at me until I finally understood. I can see it all now.

Lucy: You will never get it.

Mike: Oh Lucy I get it. You’re a racist.

Lucy: No I’m not.

Mike: Then why did you support the black only graduation ceremony. I thought segregation was racist.

Lucy: It was not segregation it was a celebration of black people.

Mike: Where white people were not allowed to go.

Lucy: Because everywhere white people go they bring destruction and hate with them. I mean America was founded on racism, hate, and destruction.

Mike [Sighs]: How?

Lucy: We had slavery and we took the land from the Indians and women could not vote.

Mike: Everywhere had slavery even Africa, I think at the time the only place to not have slavery was England. The Indians killed each other over the land all the time. We fought for this land and won it through conquest, right or wrong it happened and it is not going to change. Women can vote now so what is the problem?

Lucy: The problem is that racism, sexism and hate are embedded into all our institutions and our culture.

Mike: Then wouldn’t it be embedded in every culture, since every culture has had sexism and racism and slavery in one form or another. Some cultures in the Middle East still oppress women and gay people.

Lucy: I should have guessed you were an Islamaphobe too.

Mike: An Islama-what?

Lucy: You hate Muslims.

Mike: How do you figure? Also I thought a phobia meant you were afraid of something, not that you hated it.

Lucy: You just said Middle Eastern culture oppress women, but what you really mean is Muslims and Islam oppress women. Not all Muslims are like that and I don’t appreciate you generalizing them to stir up bigotry. Your fear of Islam makes you hate it. If you only took a moment to get educated you’d understand there is nothing to be feared.

Mike: I’m so glad you are here to tell me what I really mean to say. I don’t know how I got through life without you translating everything for me.

Lucy: Mike if you don’t start taking this seriously there is going to be a lot of trouble.

Mike: That’s cute Lucy, what are you going to do call the police? Hit me?

Lucy: [Balls up her fist]: I should punch you, maybe I’d knock the Nazi out of you and I could have my friend back.

Mike: Funny I was thinking the same thing.

Lucy: Now you promote abuse toward women. You probably don’t even believe there is a campus rape culture.

Mike: Rape is bad, everyone knows it, even rapists. So no there is no campus rape culture that promotes rape.

Lucy: [Looks at Mike is shocked silence].

Mike: The problem on campus is the administrators try to handle everything in house. They are judge jury and executioner. Instead they need to turn these cases over to the police.

Lucy: The police! You mean people are supposed to go to the very people murdering them in the street and ask for help. Are you kidding me?

Mike: Murdering them in the street! Lucy you sound like a lunatic, do you even hear yourself?

Lucy: I could say the same about you. If you only knew what I knew or were educated properly you would have your eyes open. You would be able to see the reality around you and understand the truth of the world. I was ignorant like you before I took my first gender studies course, but at least I woke up. At least I care about other people and am trying to use my privilege to help those in need. The vulnerable who are under constant attack by bigots like you who refuse to accept their role in oppressing minorities and People of Color.

Mike: It sounds like you are in a cult and had a religious awakening. People of Color and colored people are the same thing, it separates people into groups. Everyone who is colored and those who are white. Look Lucy, clearly you are mixed up, how about we just get together for coffee tomorrow after classes and talk this out.

Lucy: I could never talk with someone who spews so such hate speech. You have no idea how much harm you are doing and how many people you are hurting. I never want to see you again. [Turns and stomps off]

Mike: What? You’re just going to throw our friendship away just like that? [Yelling] Lucy. [To himself] What just happened? What happened to her? [Walks away toward his next class]