(Akiit.com) COLUMBIA, S.C., April 12 — The NAACP plans a summit Saturday to address racism on college campuses months after white students at Clemson University held a party mocking black stereotypes and after the founder of a white supremacist group spoke there earlier this week.
A student organization invited Jared Taylor, founder of the Oakton-based New Century Foundation, to speak at the campus Monday, Taylor’s group said. His speech came just a few months after a party at which white students mocked black stereotypes by drinking malt liquor and at least one student dressed in black face.
“We have a lot of work to do,” said Dwight James, executive director of the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP. “A lot of people have to wake up to what’s going on, on campuses.”
Some students were upset over the visit, James said.
Taylor said he does not view himself as a white supremacist even though he believes whites are genetically superior to blacks. Taylor, who spoke against diversity in his speech Monday, has said the white race is losing its identity in the United States because of multiculturalism and immigration. Some of his comments were posted on the student group’s Facebook Web page, according to the state NAACP.
“He believes that diversity causes problems,” said Stephen Webster of the New Century Foundation. “It’s not the strength that everybody says that it is and that it is in fact a weakness.”
A message left for Taylor was not immediately returned Thursday.
Clemson President James Barker issued a statement by e-mail Wednesday, calling for “a stronger, more inclusive university.”
“It has become clear to me, however, that we can and should do more to become a community that more closely reflects the true diversity of the state in which we live,” Barker wrote.
By Katrina A. Goggins