I (30F) grew up in the Richmond area and went to VCU as a student. As others have said, the campus is in the middle of the city, so as with any city environment it safest to be careful and watchful especially at night, but I never felt particularly unsafe while in the city. As far as the racism, I never experienced any overt racism as a Black woman on campus, but there were occasions that I felt uncomfortable because I was one of maybe 3-4 Black kids in a class of over 100 (I was an engineering major)