When Diversity Drops: Race, Religion, and Affirmative Action in Higher Education

“Man, This Is Hard”

69 I remember those moments where I’m going through something as a black man that’s really, really hard, and I want to run to my black friends. I do and it’s good. Then God’s like “You need to share with your roommate. You need to share with Hiroshi. You need to share with Matthew,” and all these men that aren’t black that God really wants me to let into my life. And I’m like “Why? They won’t understand.” The point isn’t for them to be able to understand per se, but the point is for them to be able to know me better and to support me in something that they don’t understand. Now I look back and I love those people. I wouldn’t be who I am without them. I know that God used them to show me more of who He is and that they’re an important piece of that. —Darren, IVCF alumnus and staff member Friendships such as the ones that Darren described are atypical on college campuses, not just because of the spiritual component but also because of the interracial dynamic. On campus, interracial contact is much more likely to happen via casual socializing rather than close friendship (Espenshade and Walton Radford ). By remodeling organizational culture and pursuing common goals of faith and racial reconciliation, IVCF nurtured an environment that encouraged friendships such as Darren’s. Nonetheless, being united in faith did not mean that IVCF was free from race-related tensions and conflicts. Moreover, the advent of Prop.  affected both CU 4 “Man, This Is Hard” The Possibilities and Perils of Interracial Friendship 70 WHEN DIVERSITY DROPS and the IVCF community. For some black students, IVCF’s indifference to the anti-affirmative-action ordinance felt like a betrayal, and their inherently unequal status at CU not only affected their IVCF experiences but also threatened the group’s ability to achieve its goals. Positive Experiences: “My Best Friend Is Someone Who Is of a Different Background than Me” While the number of black and Latino/a students in IVCF fluctuated over the years, a key benefit of the group’s multiethnic environment was the chance it gave students to form meaningful relationships across race. Miriam, a Japanese American, summed up the effect of IVCF on her friendships: “Just the interracial friendships that I’ve had, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be friends with them unless it was through this fellowship.” Jennifer, a black alumna who attended CU from  to , explained that these friendships across race were not just token relationships: “I think there was something about folks having actual depth of relationship across culture, not just ‘I know that person and we work together, we’re in class together’ but like ‘My best friend is someone who is of a different background than me, or this girl that I’m in ministry with, or someone whose home I’ve been to,’ things like that. I think there are ways that that was unique and true and I think [IVCF] drew some people just for that.” One byproduct of interracial friendships was students’ growing ability to see issues from new perspectives and to feel empathy for others. Alumni spoke about how friendships sparked interest in understanding others’ experiences regarding race. For instance, Paul, a black alumnus, talked about one of the first people to befriend him in IVCF, a white male named Robert: It started my freshman year. There was this guy named Robert. He was this older student, white guy, about six foot four, from Salinas, and I just didn’t understand why [IVCF] cared about race so much. It struck me as a little strange. I felt like they were clueless and didn’t know what the heck they were doing but . . . I was curious, so Robert wanted to know what it was like to be a part of black culture, to get to just know me as a person, but I didn’t make it easy on him at all. I “MAN, THIS IS HARD” 71 was a complete ass, for lack of a better word, but he stuck through all the things that I put him through, and he chose to suffer with me as a black person, and that’s when things, I guess, started to shift a little bit for me. . . . I had experienced a...