Campus security shields students from the real Miami.
Miami: the city of white sand beaches, sleepless nightlife, beautiful people and harmonious diversity, right?
Wrong.
I’ve learned that Miami is a gilded city where the beautiful beaches and people disguise the crack addicts and impoverished community. Miami has some of the richest people in the United States and some of the poorest people.
Why, then, do people fail to realize this seeming case of extremes?
It is next to impossible not to notice the burnt-out and rundown houses along I-95. Yet for some reason, the mansions and skyscrapers are all that is seen. Or are they all that people care about?
Students are warned to avoid certain areas and thus flock to all of two places in the entire city: South Beach and the Grove. I don’t know what I would do if I heard someone say they were going somewhere like Little Havana or Hialeah.
This lush, subtropical landscape that we call home is a unique campus community that provides us with the utmost safety in a city surrounded by crime.
It is a microcosm that provides students with a false sense of security and invincibility.
What has been created here is a bubble.
The bubble is like an invisible force field that keeps out all bad and allows only good to pass through. The bubble makes it possible for students to walk to the convenience store at 3 a.m. and for them to be able to wear their colored bandannas without having to worry about being shot down by a local gang.
What I’m trying to say is that, on the surface, it may seem as though there is nothing wrong with providing students with a safe and secure campus, but the problem is when students decide to venture outside the bubble, their false sense of security translates into trouble.
For some students, the bubble helps to boost their ego. After all, they are the coolest, right?
Well, as soon as they step off campus, students who forget to leave their ego in the bubble wind up in some pretty dangerous situations.
Many have been harassed, assaulted, mugged and the list goes on and on. They return to the bubble as always, but they are changed. Their sense of security and safety is forever altered and their ego is gone. And they realize what Miami really is. The bubble may not be visible, but next time you’re walking to the convenience store at 3 a.m. think about how different it would feel to be walking around anywhere else in Miami at that time. Most importantly, maybe you’ll remember to leave your ego in the bubble too.
Leigha Taber is a junior majoring in psychology.