As I watch various admissions tours strolling through the sidewalks of the River Campus I am reminded of my own experience less than a year ago. Mindless tour guides recite scripted college tour rhetoric, parents, asking questions about academics, listen with the utmost attention, while prospective students’ eyes wander aimlessly, rating the appearance of passing female undergraduates and hoping that the tour will end soon so that they can get back home for weekend high school festivities. One bold student, tired of listening to stories of some old guy who invented film or some lady who had something to do with vote, speaks up and asks “what is there to do on the weekend?” The tour guide, happy to answer, responds with the same bullshit heard on college campuses and websites around the country. “There’s so much to do on campus: concerts, movies, plays etc.” But the tour guide knows what the wide eyed prefrosh wants to hear: ” A lot of people just drink on the weekend, go to parties; at the frats or elsewhere, so people go out to bars.” The tour guide makes sure to disclaim her last statement but insisting that “if you don’t drink, there is still plenty to do.” However, the one thing you will never hear from a tour guide is the truth. No one ever says “well, there’s a graveyard on one side of campus and a hospital past that. And then on the other side there is a ghetto, full of those scary people who we like to call “from across the bridge” and you can’t go over there. No one will ever tell a prospective student that if he tries to walk “across the bridge” he will be called over to a police car over a loud speaker, where he will be told by a butterfly knife wielding officer who tells him to “Get back across the river. They are fucking savages over here” (That is a direct quote). And when that same student waits outside his dorm on a friday night for his friends from home to come visit him from out of town, a student aide will suspiciously stroll by him only to return with three of his fellow student narcs and ask “whats going on here?” After explaining the situation the harmless student will be told by the aide “Oh sorry. It’s just that sometimes we get people from ‘across the bridge.'” And when the student and his out of town friends get caught by security smoking under the bridge, the security officer says in a matter-of-fact tone to the only non-white individual in the group, “You’re from across the bridge, aren’t you?” Yeah, sure, he must be from “across the bridge.” He isn’t white and he is doing something illegal. That cop must have been right. From what I hear, there must be terrible people “across the bridge.” The same people that I see everyday in the pit and in danforth, the only people that ever ask me how I’m doing, or what I’m up to tonight, or smile. They are the only people with manners. They are good people. Maybe its because they have to try so hard to not seem like people from “across the bridge” or maybe it is just because they are genuinely good people. But, honestly lets stop kidding ourselves. People from “across the bridge” are black people, or african-american people, or whatever you prefer to call ‘them.’ I prefer to call ‘them’ people.I think this University needs to stop focusing on the problems surrounding our campus and start dealing with those within. Maybe they should look into the blatant cocaine abuse and sales going on everyday. Not to mention all the other drugs you can find, depending on which frat you go into. The steroid use on our less than successful football team (Trust me, it exists). The kids that kill their parents. The rapists. (you probably can but those last 2 in the campus times} Maybe we should get rid of all these people before we worry about anyone from “across the bridge.”
(please edit this and put it in the paper, you can fix it however you want, just keep the same idea.}
