Fort Collins – Jason Green was tired of being the only black person in a sea of white faces every time he went to class at Colorado State University.
When he first arrived on campus, he heard the whispers that he was a “token” student. And then in his sophomore year, a white supremacist moved in just down the hall at his dorm.
Green wondered if he would ever fit in and thought he should move on. His mother, Diana Green, refused to let him.
She didn’t raise a quitter.
“I told my son to focus on what he could to make a difference,” she said.
Green followed his mother’s advice, reaching out to others and taking on leadership roles on campus. Soon after, students embraced Green, now a junior, and elected him CSU’s first black student-body president.
“I’m absolutely amazed by him,” said junior Sadie Conrad, who was Green’s running mate. “He relates to just about everybody on campus, and everybody knows Jason and loves him.”
While acknowledging the milestone for CSU, the 21-year-old Green said he wasn’t trying to make a statement. “I just thought I could add something to the campus by trying to get more students involved in decision-making,” he said.
Students at other Colorado colleges and universities have elected black students to lead them, including at the University of Colorado and Metropolitan State College of Denver.
About 12 percent of CSU’s 24,947 students are minorities. Green said he believes he won the election in April because many minority students see themselves outside the mainstream.
Green said he feels the eyes of his white classmates on him when he enters a classroom. He winces when professors ask him to sum up the “black experience.”
“It’s terrifying to be singled out and to become the voice for an entire race,” he said.
Black professors feel just as typecast, said Chance Lewis, assistant professor of teacher education at CSU and associate director of the Center for African American Research and Policy.
“I’ve had people come up to me in the grocery story and tell me, ‘Nice game last night,”‘ Lewis said. “Just because I’m African-American doesn’t mean I’m an athlete.”
A psychology major with an eye toward politics, Green wants to get across how relevant campus politics is to the lives of students. After all, Green and other student leaders oversee a $1.2 million budget and have a major say in how student fees will be used.
“I’m hoping to get a lot more students engaged,” he said.
If anybody can motivate students to get involved, it’s Green, said Conrad, the incoming vice president.
She saw how he relished the campaign trail, and the requisite meeting and greeting of students on campus. “He completely loves talking to people.”
Green says his approach for serving as president this fall will be simple. “I don’t want to be seen as being on a pedestal. I want to be approachable.”
Politics is not new to Green, who served as student-body president at Rangeview High School in Aurora for three years.
When Green visited CSU for the first time, he was impressed by the friendliness of the people and the facilities on campus.
But he noticed soon enough that it was different from Aurora, one the most racially diverse cities in the state. “There were times when I felt completely lost,” Green said.
Soon, he was homesick and ready to leave, something his mother just couldn’t let happen. She told him to get immersed in the school and take a leadership role. He became a resident assistant in his dorm during his sophomore year when he encountered his greatest challenge.
A male student moved two doors down from Green’s room and made it clear he believed in the mastery of the white race. “He really believed that African-Americans had a smaller brain,” Green said.
CSU’s president-elect shrugs off that time as a learning experience. He never pressed the student about the student’s beliefs, and the two kept their distance. “By the end of the year, we had a few conversations,” Green said.
Diana Green said she’s proud her son didn’t let such distractions steer him away from his goals. “He’s definitely someone to watch,” she says proudly.
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
