The year was 1991. I was a senior at Ohio State University in Columbus. Yeah, I know, that officially makes me old.
I had been active in various campus activities and organizations for the better part of my college career, but there was still one thing I wanted to achieve before I graduated.
To be on Ohio State’s Homecoming Court.
I know. Sounds cheesy, but as most American sports fans know, people who go to big schools like Ohio State love their college football. I mean really love, like in an unhealthy and over the top kind of way.
Even today when people ask about my religion, I tell them, “half Jewish, half Buckeye.”
To be honest, I’m not sure which one even comes first.
I have a custom-made toilet in my basement that has Ohio State on the outside and Michigan in the bowl.
Every year, Ohio State chooses five men and five women to be on the Homecoming Court, and from there a king and queen are chosen.
The 10 people selected to the Homecoming Court get the royal treatment.
On homecoming weekend, they tour all the dorms for homecoming activities and pep rallies. They’re featured in Ohio State’s newspaper, The Lantern, and in the game program. On game day, they sit in the backs of convertibles and parade into the stadium of 106,000 fans, waving to cheers.
Before the game, the Homecoming Court takes the field to sing Ohio State’s alma mater song, “Carmen Ohio.” Each member of the court is then featured on the giant scoreboard with their picture, major and hometown.
To a Buckeye fan, it’s a dream come true.
But the process to be selected is a vigorous one.
There’s student voting, and then for the people who make it past that, each remaining candidate appears before a panel of judges. They include educators, former football players, a student representative and even members of OSU’s board of trustees.
Much to my surprise, I had made it to the panel round.
There I was, standing before eight judges waiting for who knows what questions were about to come my way.
I got a few of the typical fun ones. How big of a fan am I? Who’s my favorite Buckeye football player? What’s my favorite thing about Ohio State? What top five places would I take someone if they wanted to tour Ohio State?
But one judge, a middle-aged Black woman, asked me a serious question.
“I have a senior in high school. She’s deciding on colleges. Given all the racist incidents and racism problems of late at Ohio State, would you advise my daughter to attend Ohio State and, if so, why?”
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, there was quite a bit of racism on Ohio State’s campus.
Police beat the shit out of an unarmed Black college student. KKK and Nazis spray-painted racist comments all over the main street where the restaurants and bars were located. A professor got in trouble for making racist comments toward Black students. Fraternities and sororities got called out for excluding Black students. One sorority even had a private ceremony where everyone put on white hoods.
In my own fraternity, members ran for their lives when a Black honors student friend of mine knocked on the back glass door of our house to study with me one night.
An anti-Semite even painted a giant red swastika on my dorm room door when I was a freshman. There was more than one time I overheard people sharing anti-Semitic nonsense on campus.
Bigotry was a giant problem at Ohio State, so the woman’s question was no softball.
Would I advise the woman’s 18-year-old Black daughter to attend Ohio State?
I stood tall and answered:
Yes, I would.
What’s college for? Presumably, it’s to prepare us students for life beyond Ohio State. To give us the skill set needed to make it in this world. To succeed in jobs, in our families and in life. Racism is a big problem at Ohio State, no doubt. But it’s an even bigger problem in society at large. When Black students graduate from Ohio State, they’ll need to interact with that society to succeed.
Ohio State has some wonderful people. I’ve met some of the greatest students and teachers ever. But it also has some of the worst people I’ve ever met. Hateful people.
Sort of like the rest of the world.
If your daughter attends Ohio State, she undoubtedly will interact with some amazing people and gain fantastic mentors. Sadly, she’ll also have to confront the horrors of racism.
The good news, though, is when she graduates, she will be better prepared to meet the challenges of the real world than if she hadn’t. She will have developed skills needed to navigate America and its generational racism.
Ohio State is the perfect place to prepare people for the real world.
She smiled back at me, and I went on to make it to the Homecoming Court.
Now of course, I never wish that anyone would ever have to navigate racism or any form of bigotry. I prefer a society in which our institutions, systems and structures are replaced with new non-racist ones. I absolutely want a world where Nazis, the KKK and Proud Boys aren’t given a voice by narcissistic politicians.
But until we achieve that better America, it’s preferable for people to know how to hopscotch through the American race cards we’ve been dealt.
Jeffrey Kass is an award-winning author, lawyer and speaker. His newest book, “Black Batwoman v. White Jesus,” is a collection of essays aimed at eradicating unconscious bias.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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