Growing up in Indiana, as I did, you notice a few things about the place. It's beautiful. The people are friendly, overweight, and overwhelmingly Republican. They are called Hoosiers. Basketball is a religion. There is no cappucino (or at least there wasn't until a couple of years ago), and there is a southern twang to Indiana speech. You also notice that Indiana has made some embarrassing contributions to U.S. culture over the years--Michael Jackson, Dan Quayle, Bobby Knight, the Klan. The Klan? One of Indiana's dirty little secrets: it was the KKK capital of the U.S. during the twenties. The Klan was a sort of insular, insulating social glue in Indiana after WWI--it brought together native-born white Protestants from all economic and social levels, and it united them against Catholics, Jews, blacks, alcohol, and immorality in general. Corruption from within destroyed the Klan's power by the mid-twenties, but the memory of Indiana's Klan period lingers on--not so much as a memory of events, but as a set of national assumptions about what Indiana is like. I encounter those assumptions whenever I tell a hip, worldly West Coaster or East Coaster that I am from Indiana. Eyes widen, mouths grimace, shudders may commence. "How can you be from there?" they ask, all attention and empathy for my warped beginnings. These are typically people who profess great tolerance for difference, and who wear their love of diversity like a membership badge, or a medal. Which brings me to the point of my blog.

In recent weeks, there has been a furor at Indiana University's Bloomington campus about a mural painted by Thomas Hart Benton for the State of Indiana Exhibit at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. The mural features scenes from Indiana history, and in one panel, amid figures of reporters and farmers and mechanics, a white nurse tends to two children, one black and one white, and a few robed Klan members dance before a burning cross. Benton's aim was to cover as honestly as he could both the good and the bad of Indiana history; at the time, his inclusion of the nurse and Klan images was considered quite daring and progressive. Now the Black Student Union is protesting the mural, saying that it makes them feel unwelcome, that it creates a hostile learning environment, and that it typifies the "institutionalized racism" at IU. The University's response? Utter drooling abasement in the face if what has become the most potent--and predictable, and dishonest, and downright dull--weapon of the campus left: the accusation of racism.

Chancellor Sharon Stephens Brehm has prostrated herself, and her university's budget, before these accusations, and just this week laid out a three-point plan for reparation (note the noun: the argument in favor of paying blacks reparations for slavery gains credence and credibility from actions like Brehm's). Reparative point one: All groups meeting in the classroom where the mural hangs are required to be educated about it, lest it do damage to the unprepared. It reminds me of chemistry class, where you have to be trained how to protect yourself from toxic substances before you can enter the lab. Perhaps they should issue protective goggles to everyone coming within eyeshot of the mural. Reparative point two: IU will create a "One for Diversity Fund," which will raise money for more "diverse" art on IU's campus, "art that will celebrate, recognize and memorialize the multicultural past and present of both Indiana and Indiana University, as well as the importance of diversity for education." The fund will also allow IU to "strengthen [its] commitment to multicultural artists by commissioning their work, hiring them on our faculty, and inviting them to campus for exhibits and conferences." Tokenism, anyone? Reparative point three: more affirmative action, more classes on issues pertaining to diversity, and mandatory sensitivity training in all summer orientation plans. We wouldn't want any incoming students to think IU actually condoned the behavior of the KKK, now, would we? After all, it's such a real possibility.

To IU's credit, the administration refused to simply take the mural down (despite the BSU's threat to do "whatever it takes" to get rid of the mural). But to the administration's discredit it overcompensated for its principled decision not to remove the mural by showering the disgruntled with money and praise. I wonder if future murals of Indiana history will feature white administrators cowering on their knees before militant student groups? And I wonder if IU's administrators realize--if they are capable of realizing--how much they just contributed to Indiana's unfortunate historical role as national embarrassment?