Race is the neglected problem of the twenty-first century. In our time, the subject of race is one that is kept hush for as long as possible until racially-charged incidents break the silence. When these particular incidents occur the first action that people take is that they choose sides. This is because even in the years after the Civil Rights Movement race is still a contested topic among people. So much so that conversation on the topic can be a dangerous thing for the relationship you have with others. It is such a volatile topic that in certain environments people would rather keep their views silent than to possibly conflict with the opinions of other people. We regularly attempt to “tolerate” our differences between people rather than to understand, and this practice has permeated through every facet of America society. Most importantly, this is how race has affected colleges in the United States like Trinity College. At Trinity College, race at many different times is an unspoken subject because Trinity is not immune to the affect the discussion of race has on communities. Trinity campus’s mood, I believe, is tied to how students are mindful of each other and their differences. The campus is a different place when specific incidents occur and a lot of harm is done than good as a result. Race an issue that is not publicly expressed at Trinity, and thus awareness is not an available option for students. In order to solve this problem, Trinity College will have to foster discussions in the form of student run programs in order to help students truly understand each other.
Collectively, humankind is not equal in their capabilities and gifts. However, all people are equally gifted at noticing the differences they have from one another. Accents, height, eye color, hair color and size are what people pick up on these things automatically almost as if on instinct. These characteristics that make up the image of a person have all been used at one point or another in order to separate people from each other. However, all these things that people look for are not as noticeable to people as skin color and race. This is the ultimate separator, an identifying system that humans themselves created, again in order to broadcast the differences that people have with one another. Back then, race was the ultimate separator because people used race to either overtly or discreetly explain why they felt that they were superior to those who were not like them. However, as time progressed, change arose and the term racism was introduced to the world and those practices of old were cast away in order to form a more accepting society. Since the word racism and everything it represents was defined and revealed to the world, governments in countries like America have tried to pull away from their pasts. They attempt this by setting the foundation to establish to a “Post-Racial Society” so that currently and in the future, the past will be behind us and out of memory. All to create a “color-blind society” where everyone’s capabilities matter more than race, where people can “co-exist.” In today’s day and age that involves making the topic of race the most sensitive of all. This goal to essentially ignore race has people trying to achieve a silence on the topic. This is because conflict will occur no matter what your views are and to be called a racist in the twenty-first century is considered one of the worse insults to a person’s character. Thus, people try to always try to present the image, specifically in this country, of an open, accepting American. “Race relations are complex and difficult, yet it seems in the many years since the civil rights movement, image has outweighed substance. People have ceased being real with themselves and others.” [1. O’conner, Andrew. “LexisNexis® Academic & Library Solutions.” University Wire. column. 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.] Everyone repeats this practice far and wide, who are afraid under normal circumstances to express themselves. It starts with your family, but this development does not take root really until teenagers start to gain their own independence, and that is the time when many decide to attend colleges.
College for many is the start of a person’s independent life where they can first function on their own in an environment that attempts to mirror the diversity, opportunity and experiences of the world. However, although college is a place of supposed independence, it is a school with self-made rules that students operate by. There are a few universal rules for school at any level, but the most important thing in school is for people to like you. Strong opinions on subjects are admirable among people but on topics such as race can cause people to feel alienated from your beliefs. This is the first reason why I believe that very controversial topics on the level that race is put on are silenced. Not to conform, but to establish relationships because unless promoted by their classes people won’t broadcast what they “truly” think about the idea of race. Second, I believe that people of all races are not comfortable about talking about race among others. Third, for the most part I believe that before college, people’s knowledge of the question of race has its same message repeated year by year. If my own experiences were like other high school students in particular, it would be an annual time commitment of the same material, the PBS VHS tape Eyes On The Prize and after two years I knew everything that would be presented to me on that day. For me there was no continuation, so there was no build-up and it would be up to myself to build up on my knowledge and experiences. Lastly, I believe that people on the campus of Trinity campus are unaware of each other and the beliefs that they have. There is a silent problem on Trinity campus: Students don’t talk about race. We wait and wait for the inevitable to occur and then only when it does do the routine reactions occur among the people.
Four years ago in 2007, before I was a student at Trinity College numerous racial events occurred on campus. These events elicited loud responses from a variety and mix of students who opposed the idea that these events were still taking place. In particular, during the junior year of a student named Alfonso Bui, a student of color at Trinity had an white erase board she kept on her door defaced with racial slurs. Alfonso Bui decided to make a full- length documentary on the perceptions of the incident and the reactions to said event. In 2007, after students heard about the incident regarding the whiteboard, many students including those whose board was defaced, organized a group of students and teachers. Their goal was to broadcast their views and publicly present to the campus that they were against the actions that had taken place. In fact, the students who were participating in the event calmly “stormed” Mather Hall and sat with someone they didn’t know, someone who wasn’t the same race, and someone who was different. They were tired of the segregation that happens at Trinity, the separation that the students feel from each other and to forge new relationships and foster a more unified campus aware and against the displays of racial insensitivity that can occur at Trinity.
Among all colleges, Trinity College is not at all the sole location between colleges where racist activity occurs. It is in fact, it is one of many across the United States, because negative-racial events and separation occurs within all colleges including those with such popular names like Harvard and Duke. Such was the case in 2009, at the prestigious and well-known Harvard University. That year the Chinese Student Association at the college hosted a themed-party after which they were subjected to racial insensitivity. At this particular party students who attended were given the freedom to write whatever they wished on tape and paper posted around the area the party was held. Soon after, organization and its students realized that students abused this freedom. Writing claims about Chinese people meant to arise emotion, “Chinese people perform genocide . . . Chinese people suck.” [2. Hardwick, Spencer. “LexisNexis® Academic & Library Solutions.” University Wire. Article. 11 Mar. 2009. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.] People do many things when they believe that they will not be caught. This was just one visible part of the race-related events that happen at colleges, however highly visible at all colleges is the separation that students of different ethic decedent participate in. At Duke, their students followed this unspoken rule the same way many students at Trinity do. However, students at Duke acknowledged the separation students who consider themselves “different” from another in their social lives at colleges. The image of a diverse and integrated campus is one that is a false image. “On the surface, we appear to be fulfilling King’s ideal.” [3. Oshilaja, Dayo. “LexisNexis® Academic & Library Solutions.” University Wire. Article. 27 Aug. 2009. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.] The idea that all people can interact and live together socially, however at college’s where the first priority are numbers we fall short of Martin Luther King’s true goal. He believed that as members of the human race, we cannot let our differences be the reason we promote segregation and its forms. Colleges need to become more diverse, not in terms of statistics but in the interactions between students. The only way that can occur is for people to talk with each other, we cannot be silent to what we observe. Problems must be made public and then it is up to a united community to begin the always arduous task of dealing with such problems.
In the wake of the act at Trinity College in 2007, apart from the demonstration in Mather, Trinity took a very bold step and hosted an open forum for discussion on how people felt about the events that occurred at Trinity. There were many constructive comments where students called for a change in what they saw at the college. They called out each other to call for change, for organizations to change and asked what the administration was going to do, as well as what the students should do in order to keep the discussion alive and relevant at Trinity. In the end however, after this was all said and done, the end of the year rolled along and the events of the past year were forgotten as students took their summer break away from school. The events of 2007 were put aside and Trinity was back at square one in a new year. This is what keeps Trinity so vulnerable and separated when it comes to incidents regarding race: There is no continuation. Many things are made public, but the next steps are not taken.
For a problem as complex as race, I believe that the way to make race a less hostile subject is to discuss it openly. I believe race is a high-profile topic among not only students but everyone is because people are so uncomfortable discussing their relationship with race. My initial solution to this problem is simple: to have a discussion similar to the format of the forum held in 2007. However, there are many variables to make this proposal relevant and useful for Trinity College. Primarily, I believe that if these discussions were to happen there would have to be more than one because the only way that people learn and change is through habit. However, I know that it will take time before a habit settles in and many students can open up about race. In Alfonso Bui’s film, Some Place I Call Home, other students realized this as well. Stephanie Irizarry had this to say about the symbolic movement that took place in 2007.
“I feel the symbolic protest was effective to a certain extent which it called attention and that’s what you need, you need it to be public . . . okay it happened one day but did it continue? The next day in Mather the tables were still separated and the same concepts came about, the division was still there.” [4. Bui, Alfonso, and Kingsbridge Productions Video. Some Place I Call Home. Hartford, Conneticut: Kingsbridge Productions, 2007. Print. 13:01- 13:30.]
These meetings that I am proposing at campus should be smaller that the original 2007 forum but should still be mixed among race, class, gender, sexual orientation. This is so that there is a range of topics to discuss that will have a plethora of opinions. The opinions in their discussions will be broad but be focused on the effect that race has had on their lives. This prompt comes from the film, Skin Deep, where college students were put together in a room and just talked about race in their lives, revealing and bearing all to their peers to digest. Should this process be mimicked, I believe that groups should stay true to the film and remain student-run because students are willing to reveal more to people their age. However, in order to keep up the process of keeping these meetings a habit I believe the SGA should be responsible in order to organize groups and meetings at times during the year. As I mentioned many times I believe that one meeting is not enough, but also there should be many available groups that people would be able to sign up for online to a certain limited amount of people. These groups in the sense of signing up in order to ease students fears, should be completely voluntary in order that these groups obtain people who are willing to speak with each other. That all being said a proper incentive to lure students to these meetings would be to give an additional quarter or half credit for attending around six of the total meetings which I believe should be held if possible 22 times during the school year on Saturdays in the early afternoon. I would give this credit as incentive without asking for participation because regardless of what a person does in these meetings they are listening to the opinions of others and what humans do best is unconsciously picking up and remembered what they are exposed to. I believe that just hearing what people have to say will begin to affect those who are unwilling to share. However, students must be willing because in order to change anything because most social problems only affect students. If students agreed to participate in these “discussions” Trinity would benefit, not immediately but its effects would slowly begin to affect the campus.
I believe that these meetings would present an opportunity to Trinity that it has been lacking. These student mediated discussions could bring a community together on issues creating a community that students in years before have hoped for and to provide an excellent and unified place to learn for those future students. Sam Zivin, class of 2007, was one such student who wanted events like the forum to occur more and for students to get more involved in their school.
“ . . . I think we need to keep this going so perhaps this is a fortuitous event (referring to the racial incident in 2007) and that we are sweeping the issues from under the carpeting . . . we need to talk about them and continue to talk about them . . . we can stop the ignorance.” [5. Bui, Alfonso, and Kingsbridge Productions Video. Some Place I Call Home. Hartford, Conneticut: Kingsbridge Productions, 2007. Print. 28:23- 29:14]
These meetings about race have been implemented at other colleges where students feel that their understanding has been broadened. In the case of California State, near the conclusion of every year, a summit is sponsored so that students can talk to each other about race. Colleges with similar programs like California State realized that unlike strict punishment and rules, discussion is the only way to really change the frequency of events of racial insensitivity. Although they restrict groups by their racial ethnicity they realize that these discussions are only are helped by the “risk you are willing to take.” [6. Cevallos, Giovanny. “LexisNexis® Academic & Library Solutions.” University Wire. Article. 5 May 2009. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.] Some of the greatest movements were started by individuals who were willing to allow people to scrutinize them. In the same respect, change will only happen when people are aware that their views are not the only in the world, that allowing oneself to be subject to change is a strength that can change others.
The power to change the way race is treated at Trinity College rests heavily with the students. It will take time, it will take effort, it will force people to eventually venture well past what they are comfortable with. I know as well that even with these meetings it will not solve the problems or prevent racial incidences at Trinity, but it will start a process. Although these incidences happen at the will of individuals, I do know that a community united can do great things, they can tackle a problem together and in harmony without accusations or the ignorance that peers have another’s beliefs. There is no end all cure for the problem we have with racial interactions, and there will never be one. I can only hope that students exposure to what their peers think will make everyone better, understanding and thoughtful students. It will bring Trinity closer and it will I hope end the separation that students report as a norm here at Trinity College.
