And here’s the response I posted in the Princeton Alumni Weekly and elsewhere…
“Thank you for this well-written piece. I empathize. My late husband and I, 70s-era prep school/Ivy League/Seven Sister “Exceptional Negro” alums, homeschooled our three sons with the use of African and African-American, mostly male grad students at Ohio State to teach biology, French and mathematics. We traveled internationally with our sons and sent them to space camp, oceanography camp, engineering camp, etc. in an effort to create the most holistically healthy environment possible – with an eye toward conscious comfort anywhere as global citizens, judged by the content of their character. Hah! In 1998 our eldest, twins, were barely at Princeton 30 days before “the dark one” was stopped at 10 in the morning and asked to show proof of ownership of his bicycle by five campus police officers. Trust and believe, no one in authority thought that was a big deal either – until my husband showed up on the first thing smoking. The University’s initial response? “You are too involved in your son’s life.” Years later, when we attended the other twin’s philosophy-department reception the day before graduation and none of the faculty members spoke to him, us or his grandparents, my father, a WWII vet who attended Ohio State on the GI Bill but couldn’t live on campus as a “Negro,” turned to my husband and said, “Einstein’s theory extends beyond energy. Systems of white supremacy are never destroyed either, they just continue to be reconfigured.” I’m sorry your son and your entire family had to experience this trauma, but as the old folks say in church, “count it all joy” … he could have been shot or killed. My best advice: Pace yourself, it’s a very long and arduous journey bringing black American sons to safe adulthood. Our youngest (Amherst BA, UPenn MFA) is 32, and I finally feel able to relax! You might enjoy my (old) book, “Morning by Morning: How We Home-Schooled Our African-American Sons to the Ivy League,” Random House 2003.