Television Reviews : ‘Frontline’ Takes a Look at Racism on the Campus

“A disturbing portrait of racism and prejudice among young people”--that’s what “Frontline” executive producer David Fanning, in a press release, calls “Racist 101,” airing tonight at 9 on Channel 15 and at 10 on Channels 28 and 50.

“It is a national tragedy,” Fanning goes on to be quoted, “that 20 years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., and after all the gains of the civil rights movement, such a fundamental chasm between black and white still exists.”

After watching all 60 minutes of the sensationally titled “Racism 101”--and that means listening to the calm opinions during the show’s last 20 minutes as well as the emotional incidents detailed in earlier moments--the chasm doesn’t seem quite so scary.

Like the front-page Los Angeles Times story on the subject last Sunday (“A New Bigotry Ripples Across U.S. Campuses”), “Frontline” details a series of isolated racial incidents--mostly consisting of slurs, pamphlets and the like--over the last two years.

The Times article, despite its headline, paraphrased the executive director of the National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence as saying that “it is hard to tell whether the reports indicate a dramatic worsening of campus tensions or whether the news media, latching onto a ‘sexy’ issue, have just begun covering a longstanding problem they had previously ignored.”

Likewise, “Racism 101” fails to show that these scattered events constitute an alarming new trend.

Consider: The two most lengthily considered controversies in the show were spurred by (1) racist jokes told by an anonymous caller on the University of Michigan college radio station, and (2) a series of politically conservative and possibly racist articles in an independent student newspaper at Dartmouth College.

Not exactly earth-shaking stuff. However, these and other incidents have stirred black students to demonstrate for stronger measures against campus racism.

In the Michigan and Dartmouth segments, the show looks like it’s about to veer into an affirmative-action discussion, but then passes on to a segment on sororities and fraternities and how many remain all-white. Then, after some white students express stick-with-your-own attitudes, black students say that they prefer all-black sororities, etc. The subject becomes very muddy indeed.

Serious and well-meaning, “Racism 101” is undermined by its scattershot approach and either naivete or sensationalism. Does anyone really expect the nation’s continuing problems with racism not to spill onto college campuses, where many students are dealing with people of other races for the first time?