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Do IT this week: Layering
White supremacists criticize student after she writes about race relations
By Carol Biliczky
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Friday, Mar 28, 2008
A Kent State photojournalism major says she received a dozen ''hate'' e-mails from white supremacists after she wrote a column about race relations in the student newspaper.
Beth Rankin said she meant for her weekly column in the Daily Kent Stater to open up communications with the Black United Students group on campus, which she felt didn't welcome white students.
But her March 13 column found its way to a white supremacists' Web site, where some readers posted comments that she was ''groveling'' at the feet of blacks, and worse, she said.
''A couple of them said they wanted to kill my family in front of me and then me,'' said Rankin, a former student correspondent for the Beacon Journal. ''They thought I deserved to be punished.''
An FBI officer in Cleveland notified Rankin on Wednesday that her column — headlined ''I am not a white
bitch'' — had attracted the attention of white supremacists.
She called KSU police, who turned out for a previously scheduled meeting on Wednesday with Black United Students, or BUS.
The student group had invited Rankin to talk about her column, one of a series she's writing this semester under the theme, The Changing Face of Prejudice.
Rankin wrote that she didn't feel welcome at BUS events.
Fellow students expressed surprise when she and her boyfriend went to a concert by a black artist five years ago.
''I didn't believe it,'' the senior from Marblehead wrote. ''Even as I heard the exact same dialogue from every nonblack student and co-worker I discussed BUS with, I had a hard time believing that a group fighting for equal rights would covertly push away other people fighting for the same cause.''
She said she was called a ''white bitch'' at black events and that former BUS leaders said they wanted to advance the cause of blacks beyond whites.
She said she was eager to talk about race with BUS. To her dismay, though, the organization posted fliers around campus that depicted a KKK-clad figure in an ''Uncle Sam wants YOU'' pose next to her name, which appeared to connect her to that group.
She asked BUS to remove the fliers and it did.
On Thursday, both Rankin and BUS President Sasha Parker, a senior magazine journalism major from Warren, said Wednesday's three-hour meeting was constructive.
About 100 students and faculty attended the peaceful — but sometimes heated — meeting. (Read the Kent State newspaper's story about the meeting.)
''We are pro-black, but that doesn't mean we are anti-white or anti any other race,'' Parker said. ''There is a disconnect between races on campus because there isn't enough communication.''
She said she didn't like Rankin's column because she ''was criticizing my institution (BUS). I disagreed with what she wrote.''
Rankin said she wouldn't change a word of her column, despite heat from both BUS and white supremacists.
She said the student newspaper hired her as a ''resident button pusher'' and her work did just that.
As of Thursday afternoon, 62 students had posted comments to Rankin's Stater column, many — blacks and whites alike — congratulating her for treading into sensitive territory.
''She is very spunky, no question about it,'' the newspaper's adviser, Carl Schierhorn, said. ''She's very brave and good and, well, she's Beth. I doubt if anyone else could do that column as well as she did.''
Carol Biliczky can be reached at 330-996-3729 or cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com.
A Kent State photojournalism major says she received a dozen ''hate'' e-mails from white supremacists after she wrote a column about race relations in the student newspaper.
Get the full article here.
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