Honestly? I could tell you many stories about my experience in growing up in West Virginia. But, I'll let you in on three. I attended Bluefield High School at a time when the Fight Song was Dixie and the students waved Confederate flags at sporting events. It took 3 years and school consolidation to end that practice.
My first month on Marshall's campus, I was walking down 16th between 4th and 5th avenue when one of Huntington's finest pulled up beside me. Rolling down the window on the passenger side of his car, he said "N*****, if it was night time, I'd beat your a$$. He laughed, rolled up the window and proceeded on his way. Nice first impression.
Also, during the initial months of my freshman year, there was plenty of racial tension at the university. What many forget and what wasn't depicted in the movie was that the night before the plane crash there was a major altercation between white and black students during a flag football game. What I remember most is watching members of the football team witnessing the aftermath as they left for the airport. Unfortunately, it took that catastrophe to bury the incident and bring the campus together.
In spite of these and other instance, I have many, many fond memories of both institutions and have many friends of diverse backgrounds who I'm still in contact with and I plan to offer lifetime support to the university. I don't believe that there is rampant "anti-Black sentiment among the Herd faithful, I am stunned that the sentiment expressed by Mr. Woodrum was so openly and nonchalantly expressed in the year 2007.