I thought you might enjoy reading an essay I wrote for a class I took this past semester called Race and Racisms. The prompt was to compare Michelle Alexander's
The New Jim Crow to
an article by a former Columbia student called "Studying While Black" by Zachery Etheart and illuminate the relationship between the two/how they perpetuate each other. See below for my thoughts:
Zack Etheart’s 2014 article “Studying While Black” and Michelle Alexander’s 2010, The New Jim Crow relate to each other through their discussions of racialization in America. Through black exceptionalism, color diversity, and colorblindness, the texts can be read in conversation with each other.
Even though African-Americans are being told they are meant to and should be in spaces like, Columbia and on a larger scale America, they are still made to feel like outsiders within them. The constant and unnecessary policing experienced in both spaces, by the Office of Public Safety at Columbia and the New York Police Department for example, is evidence of this. It almost refutes the idea of black exceptionalism in that though an African-American may think they belong, in fact, the excess of policing shows if they don’t act in specifically defined ways, behavioral corrections will immediately be pointed to them. An unidentified student in Etheart’s article, after receiving a disciplinary summons following a petty argument with a resident advisor said, “I had to revisit the fact that being black in this country means that I need to carefully police my own tongue, body, and actions, lest someone in authority step in and remind me” (Etheart, 2014). This constant pressure for respectability can be found in both spaces. Alexander cites the politics of respectability as “the goal of racial equality that can only be obtained if black people are able to successfully prove to whites that they are worthy of equal treatment” (Alexander, 212). African-Americans must behave themselves according to the specifically white ideals of morality and presentability. As Etheart records, Columbia’s students of color have learned to carry themselves in order to avoid trouble. They include making sure your hair is “done,” instead of it being in its natural, nappy state, or something as simple as wearing sweaters. “A fucking sweater,” one sophomore said to Etheart in an interview, “vaguely indignant that it took a piece of knitwear to win a basic level of respect for herself that other students could elicit in sweatpants” (Etheart, 2014). Through affirmative action, though hopefully some merit is also considered, some respectable African-American youths, are allowed access to the systems that constrain so many of their counterparts. As Michelle Alexander mentioned recently in a talk: “There is a difference between working within a racially constructed system and learning to operate outside that system” (M. Alexander, 2018). Black exceptionalism and remnants of W. E. B. DuBois’ talented 10th make it clear, respectability politics are still at play today. In order to gain access, you must show a willingness to work within the system in order to enter it. I would counter Alexander on this. How can we break a system if we do not first know how it works? Maybe a goal instead should be to learn how a system works from the inside, then leave and subsequently break it. If we do not know their rules, how can we better them?
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| Part of a 1968 protest in attempt to stop Columbia from acquiring more land in Harlem, specifically Morningside |
The diversification within police forces and the Public Safety officers at Columbia make a cover for racism and discrimination to operate under, just as rampantly as it’s higher powered, typically white, perpetrators would like. Color diversity is a way to further instigate racism. One faulty claim that racism is nonexistent is due to officers of the peace being of color themselves both in major cities as well as on Columbia’s campus. While there may be police and safety officers of color serving and “protecting” the community, they have been trained to see color. So however they masquerade protection, officers still actively practice racial profiling in which citizens are policed. Most anything can merit a policeman’s stop, from being a group of African-American females standing in group trying to make plans for their Saturday night (Etheart, 2014) or being stopped by a traffic cop for looking suspicious, too relaxed, or seeming nervous when you saw a police car (Alexander, 133). As interviewee Beulah Agbabiaka said, “...the use of police officers of color helps to make structural racism and inequality more subtle” but it definitely still exists and shows no signs of slowing down (Etheart, 2014). Racial profiling, no matter the officer’s skin color, happens to the Black population more often than any other. Only 15% of all drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike are racial minorities while subsequently 42% of all stops and 73% of all arrests are of Black motorists (Alexander, 133). The statistics say it all. Even though people of color are a minority, they are racially profiled and end up seeming to be naturally more criminal, making the stereotyping of people of color seem warranted and even factual.
A pivotal part of Alexander’s text is her focus on color consciousness. In today’s “post-racial” America, a movement for colorblindness or the social impermissibility “of using race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt” permeates society (Alexander, 2). This attempt to end racial caste by saying color no longer matters simply is not true and Columbia’s campus is a perfect example. At the close of his article, Etheart states that while Public Safety is regularly called on gatherings for groups of color, they are rarely ever called for functions with primarily white participants. If they are called, they typically don’t disband said function. Said one interviewee, “‘...these other parties full of white people have access to way more alcohol, way more drugs—’cause they usually have more money to do these things—who I hear playing music all the time, but no one cares. Because they’re not seen as threatening,’” (Etheart, 2014). Promoting colorblindness also promotes an erasure of heritage. It is important, as Alexander notes, to acknowledge racial and cultural backgrounds and histories that inform the present-day differences among us that will always exist. “A commitment to color consciousness...places faith in our capacity as humans to show care and concern for others, even as we are fully cognizant of race and possible racial differences” (Alexander, 243). The facade of colorblindness must broken down and the importance of color acceptance and color consciousness promoted if we ever intend to move out of this racial caste system.
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| A little louder for those in the back |
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| Part of a protest for Columbia Divest to sway Columbia administration to divest funding from major corporations that fund the prison industry as well as the industry itself |
**All photos are from Google.
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