When you are Black in a primarily White environment, eventually you realize that you're as bright as the Vegas Strip in the Nevada desert.
I had one unforgettable experience my freshman year of college, where my unrequested "Big Black" identity label was shoved down my throat...
During freshman winter I was 1 of 75 students enrolled in an early morning History lecture course on the American "Founding Fathers." The class was comprised of students of all grade levels, but most importantly I was the only Black male, with there being 1 Black female. Like many freshmen, I had rapidly evolved into a night-owl/borderline insomniac who could barely wake up for (let alone stay awake in) the morning lecture. After dozing off a few times in class, I started to feel ashamed and began consciously missing classes to catch up on sleep. My choice seemed okay in my mind because I knew the professor never took attendance and didn't know my name. Sure there was a class participation portion to our grade, but only 10 people regularly participated and countless students were skipping the class periodically just like me.
Then one afternoon a few days before the midterm exam, I open my college email and see a personal letter from my professor. This definitely caught me off guard because, once again, my professor had never called me by my name or even spoken to me at this point. After a moment's apprehension, I opened the email only to find out that my professor had not only noticed my absences but was deducting points from my participation grade. She wrote that if I did not start attending classes regularly I would be in danger of failing the course! To put it simply, this email Scared Me Straight and was the impetus behind a monumental grade recovery; I was in the front row of that class everyday from that day forward. Nonetheless, I could not block out the recurring thoughts or rather rhetorical questions continuously circling my mind post-incident:
- "How did my professor know I was missing so often? I had shown my face somewhat consistently and she DEFINITELY didn't know my name. She would have had to search her picture index for the Black boy to find me."
- "Why didn't my white counterparts receive the same personal email alerting them to their impending failure? Were they even being penalized?"
- "Were my equally absent white/white-looking peers even noticed by the professor?"
I remember talking with one of the culprit "white-looking" friends, a light-skinned Latina, about these concerns, and actually she was the one who forced me to realize how much I stood out in the classroom. No matter how similar my mind and actions may have been to the other students, my physical characteristics alone attracted unprecedented notice. I recall angrily telling this friend, "I bet you if I were a 5'4" white girl with brown hair, I would have never been missed or on the verge of failing." My friend agreed.
I am not one to usually play the race card and I am EXTREMELY grateful to my professor for reaching out to me (I was then and still am thankful). It was because of my professor's unexpected email that I was able to defeat a bad habit and move in the right direction. Furthermore, I learned a MUCH bigger, more enduring lesson through this experience..
I must accept the fact that wherever I go and whatever I do, I will probably be easily distinguishable and unable to blend in. No matter how similar or accepted I may be to my White peers, my physicality will continually draw the microscope.
I will rarely be afforded the chance to be an unnoticed, free, undisturbed wallflower...
Be well,
Posts
Yep- all of my Anthropology classes were like this. In fact, all of my classes (except IFI) were like this. I got that e-mail several times just because I was the only black student. There would be days when half the damn class was missing and when they'd come back the professor would address a student as if he had been in class the previous lecture and ask them a question that they obviously couldn't answer. It sucks standing out so much...especially when you just want to blend in and do the bare minimum like everyone else. At least it kept me semi on track lol.
ReplyDeleteI've had the opposite experience actually - being a stand out white guy. In my Masters Chemical Engineering program nearly all of my classmates are Asian or Indian. I missed a few classes and the prof saw me in the hallway and confronted me about it, saying that he was concerned about whether I'd be able to make up all the material. (The prof was white as a note, not sure if that's relevant.) A friend from my research group who is Chinese missed a few classes too and the prof never said anything.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if that's racism really though or just a fact of human perception that we notice people/things that look different from the rest. I'm sure if someone dresses really different or colors their hair different, then their presence would be noticed/missed too. Granted, in that case the individual has control over it.
You make a great point, nanobri. A great point. But there's still something to this issue - to penalize the identifiable person...is that fair? and on the opposite side, to give the identifiable person the benefit of a status update, warning (while the other students don't get one)...is that fair? I guess we'd have to analyze the issue of whether a professor should sporadically/randomly enforce a policy to correct a wrong or never enforce it at all...hmmm.
ReplyDeleteThe more interesting problem though is that the profs probably don't know why/how they singled us out. They think they are doing their job, not realizing that they have in fact subconsciously isolated a student from the pack. But hey...what can you do? It's weird...
I agree that profs likely don't notice when they single people out like that. I'm not sure what to make of this point, but even if a prof DID realize what it going on, they are still in a position where they have noticed an absence, even if it's because of something the student can't control like race. I think a prof is responsible for taking action once an absence is noticed, regardless of why it is noticed.
ReplyDeleteNow, for that prof who is enlightened enough to realize that they only noticed in the first place because of a racial difference, it should probably occur to him that there are other absences that he hasn't noticed. He should try to the best of his ability to look for these as well, whether that is by taking attendance every class, trying to learn everyone's name, etc. If this isn't possible, like in the case of a giant lecture hall or something, then I am unsure what the best course of action would be.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. This is an interesting issue to explore. :)
I guess, ultimately, if attendance cannot be taken/monitored universally, it should be removed as a factor in grading. Would you agree?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I suppose that is reasonable, attendance will likely be reflected in test grades to some extent anyway.
ReplyDelete