How to Address the Unending, Vile Racism on Predominantly White Campuses
In 2014, at Colgate University, over three hundred black students staged a three-day sit-in of the Hurwitz Office of Admissions building. The reason? Anonymous racist postings on Yik Yak, a popular social media app for college students. Organized by the Colgate University Association of Critical Collegians, the students were upset after reading Yik Yak posts from white Colgate students, including, “White people won life, Africa lost, sorry we were so much better than you that we were literally able to enslave you to our will,” “I don’t want Blacks at this school,” and “Niggers be complaining.”
“In order to obtain a complete liberal arts education, one must learn and be aware of different identity politics,” the group stated. “Colgate University, at this moment, has insufficient methods to address equity and inclusivity.”
The black Colgate student activists organized using the social media hashtags #CanYouHearUsNow and #ThisIsColgate. The group also posted student video testimonials on YouTube as well as photographs of students sharing their stories with handmade signs on Instagram.
Jeffrey Herbst, Colgate’s president, like university presidents everywhere after racist incidents happen on their campuses, said all of the right things.
“Bias incidents and racism, while not unique to Colgate, are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. They have no place on a college campus, and they have no place at Colgate. We have heard you, and we will join you in the common goal of creating a campus environment that is welcoming and supportive of all of our students.”
This wasn’t the first time that Colgate faced a sit-in over racial microaggressions. Back in 2001 more than seventy black students occupied the same admissions office over “a series of racially insensitive events, including an email message from a political science professor to a student saying that many minority students took soft courses where they could discuss their feelings and might get ‘undeservedly high grades.’” Also, three black men were accosted by a white man on campus and taunted with a racial epithet.
“You can look at this as problems to be solved,” said John Dovidio, the interim faculty dean at the time. “We see them as symptoms of larger issues Colgate needs to address to become even better than it is, that will move us ahead and not simply put Band-Aids on a series of temporary problems.”
And yet it’s clear that the problem hasn’t been solved at Colgate, just as it hasn’t been solved at other schools. American University had to deal with racist Yik Yak posts like: “I really don’t like 99 percent of the Black people I meet”; “Their entire culture just isn’t conducive to a life of success: The outfits. The attitudes. The behavior”; “Tell your people to dress cleanly. No hootin and a hollerin in public”; “At my work, EVERY single case of theft and fraud has been committed by a Black person.”
The common response by non–African Americans to the concept of racial microaggressions is to see them as individualized experiences and not part of a larger picture. Where only the white individuals themselves are responsible for the actions, and aren’t tied to any systemic racism that’s assaulting black students as a whole on a daily basis. As a result, African American students are then told to get thicker skins about the insensitivity that assails them, even though their skins are already thick by the time they get to college.
By dismissing these racial microaggressions, we build a tinderbox among black students that is bound to erupt. And with the election, and reelection, of the first African American president, Americans continue to be seduced, and deluded, by the idea that we’re now in a new state of racial being, a postracial world where race is insignificant. But on today’s campuses, the racial hostility is as prevalent as ever, and it’s a ticking time bomb.
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We must challenge campus racism wherever we find it.
Back in 2014, the cable network VH1 created a reality show about black sororities called Sorority Sisters. Thousands of black fraternity and sorority members were outraged by the program, but no one was doing anything effective about it. So I created a social media strategy to defeat the show. The strategy was simple: attack the advertisers, swamp social media with negativity about the show, and then drive down ratings. Thousands of black fraternity and sorority members followed my Sorority Sisters strategy, setting up websites and creating coalitions, and within weeks, Sorority Sisters was no more. Strategy and consistent, coherent pressure made a multibillion-dollar corporation ditch a television show.
We can do the same with campus racism.
African American graduates of PWIs (predominantly white institutions) need to break out beyond their own black alumni associations and work together to gather information about the status of black students on over 1,000 campuses. The collective action of black PWI alumni can place pressure on schools to change, while also rewarding others that are proactive. We also need to create a racial climate metric for every college and university in the United States, as a way for African American parents to help their children make decisions about which schools to attend. And African Americans need to leverage one of the most powerful chips we have for change . . . the African American high school athlete.
Too often, predominately white colleges and universities enter black communities and offer scholarships to our high school athletes without doing anything to reduce the racism on their campuses. It is classic exploitation, but African Americans can use this situation to change the campus racism dynamic. Simply make sure to inform all African American high school athletes about the racial conditions on campus, something that the University of Maryland’s Colin Byrd attempted to do, and negatively recruit against any college or university that doesn’t have an acceptable track record of deterring campus racism.
This is activism by African American alumni of PWIs. But those who can make the most difference are the African American students who are already on PWI campuses. Again, it’s time for these students to reach beyond their own schools and work together with black college students nationwide. African American college students need to create a national Black Congress of Students, which would meet annually to identify issues that affect not just a handful of campuses but students throughout the country. Working as a collective effectively multiplies the power of black students, particularly on PWIs, where black student numbers are below critical mass.
More than anything, the black college students of today must learn how to confront, confront, and confront their universities’ administrations about campus racism. Making the comfortable uncomfortable should be the mantra. You are not powerless, and confronting campus racism is about making those who think they have power understand that your moral power is not only greater but inherently predisposed toward victory. Protests, advocacy, and the use of strategy to eradicate campus racism means taking risks, pushing boundaries, and yes, making some people angry. Never compromise on principles, as you’ll never get a second chance.
Also, African Americans need to take a second and third look at sending their children, the best and the brightest, to historically black colleges and universities. Too often, African American grads of PWIs look at HBCUs as schools that don’t provide that real-world quotient. But isn’t a quality education the African American college student’s most important need?
As Nikki Giovanni said, she teaches at a PWI because “black students are there.” And if those black students are going to be there, then my feeling is that these predominately white schools must not be allowed to treat racism as a normal aspect of college life. Eradicating campus racism produces better college students, both black and white, along with better Americans. And isn’t that why we send our children to colleges in the first place?
(c) 2015 by Lawrence Ross. Reprinted with permission by St. Martin's Press.