This fall semester started off with racist activities on college campuses. This month commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Brothers of the Black List case. Viewing the documentary recently helped me to put the case into focus and connect it to the rash of racist incidents that have erupted on college campuses this fall.

There have been reports of all kinds of racist activities from carving swastikas into walls to physical assaults. These have happened on campuses like Cornell, Drake, Purdue, Stockton and Cabrini universities, to name a few. Their administrations always move quickly to white-wash the incidents and eventually erase their existences.

Contrary to popular white conservative beliefs, racial profiling and criminalizing Black youth doesn’t just happen on urban streets in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. It happens to young, Black people on idyllic college campuses seeking for the American dream. It happens wherever there are Black bodies.

During the Labor Day weekend 25 years ago, the Black, male students of SUNY Oneonta were systematically pulled out of their beds, confronted on public busses and rounded up at sports practices. They were forced to show their hands to police or face arrest. The disgusting revelation was that school officials generated a list of all the black, male students on campus and their residences—all 125 of them—and turned the list over to the Oneonta police. The incident spurred the longest litigated civil rights case in U.S. history and inspired the must-see documentary "The Brothers of the Black List."

The racist round-up stemmed from the attempted rape of elderly white women who fought with her knife-wielding attacker and caused the man to cut his hands on the knife. The victim told police all she saw was a black arm. Trained dogs were brought to the scene to pick up the scent of a young, black male that police claim went in the direction of the campus.

It was later found out that the victim never said her attacker was young. It was also revealed that the dog handlers stated that the scent of the perpetrator went in the opposite direction of the Oneonta campus. This hunt was all the racially biased machinations of the all-white police force. The victim even criticized the police for their actions and public stated that she also believed the students’ rights had been violated.

If you’ve ever organized on campuses, you know that it has a transitory character as students get politicized, then graduate or transfer. The challenge of maintaining momentum and continuity is ever present. This means there’s a lot of re-inventing; valuable lessons don’t get summed up and passed on. Our community organizations need to intentionally partner with campus organizations around common issues.

The attacks on our young people, especially males, are getting more vicious and the scarring more lasting. The assaults are not only physical and psychological, there are social, political and cultural. They occur in the educational institutions, in the workplaces, in the social service spaces and in the streets. Re-focusing and doubling our efforts on our youth must be one of our priorities.

Part of the enduring trauma of the mentoring adults at Oneonta was the painful realization that as Black folks—Black, grown folks—we can’t seem protect our own children in this racist society. The institutions that interface with our children deserve scrutiny and transformation. It’s not just about preserving our credibility as the village, it’s about building a solid future that puts youth at the center.