Something happened here recently to a friend and colleague that shouldn't happen to anyone. I'm writing, with my friend's permission, because the community should be reminded that some of us are more vulnerable than others to expressions of bigotry and hatred. I'm also writing because the individuals responsible should know how repugnant most of us find their behavior and the attitudes it reflects. My colleague doesn't need someone else to write on her behalf, but it isn't fair that those targeted for abuse and harassment should usually be the ones to respond or call our attention to it.
My friend is an African-American woman who has worked at Dartmouth for some time. I won't identify her, not only in the interest of respecting her privacy, but also because who was targeted is less significant than the incident itself.
She was jogging past New Hampshire Hall several nights ago. It was dark, and there were four young men standing near the entrance of the residence. As she ran by, one of them called out, "Look at that black bitch run!" Another joined in: "Boy, she sure looks stupid!" Someone else added, "Hey! Stupid!" My friend kept running, and because this was yelled at her back, she didn't see who had taunted her. She did go back a short time later, but the individuals were gone.
It is hard to know whether to be more offended by the malice toward black people or the malice toward women expressed here. Maybe these four young men mistook my friend, jogging in the dark, for a fellow student. Would they have behaved the same way toward someone they perceived as a faculty member or administrator? Would they have tried to intimidate a man in this fashion? Regardless of the answers to those questions, and regardless of the attitudes informing the words that were spewed, what made these men think that this community is a place where such things can be said to someone? And why didn't at least one of them challenge his companions?
Among the many kinds of possible reactions to this account, I want to reflect on two: One reaction I'm hoping for, especially among those of us who in this time and place are part of a white "majority" and among those of us who are male, is a sense of outrage. Behavior of this sort is so radically hostile to our presumptions about the ethos that should inform membership in this community. Another reaction, perhaps by those who in this time and place are in one way or another a numerical "minority," or by women, may be more realistic or resigned -- not accepting or willing to tolerate what happened, but knowing that this happens much more than many of the rest of us are aware.
The majority of white, male members of this community who find sexism and racism repulsive (especially when we encounter traces of their poison in ourselves) have the dangerous privilege of not being fully aware of their prevalence. No one calls us "black bitch" -- or the equivalent. In this environment, we usually have the luxury of attributing our encounters with hostility or rudeness to something other than hatred of our color or sex.
Unearned privileges and luxuries of this sort are potentially dangerous because they can obscure part of reality that deserves our vigilant attention and makes moral claims upon us. They incline us sometimes to talk about what we don't know when we should rather listen, and they sometimes lull us into silence when we should speak out against what is wrong. They separate us from others when we need to stand together. They place the burden of responding to the hateful and ignorant "-isms" or "-phobias" of this world too heavily on their targets and victims.
I want to say to my friend, and to students and colleagues who have had experiences similar to hers, that I am angry and sad -- not only about what she was subjected to but also about the unjust reality that because of race and sex, she is vulnerable in ways others are not. I want to say in a believable way that commitment to the Dartmouth community is intertwined with a refusal to accept bigotry. I want to say that behavior and words that would seek to make her a lesser member of this college also hurt me. Because of differences in our sex and race, they don't strike me in the same way they were intended to hurt her, but they hurt me because she was the target and because what I value most about this College depends on its embrace of all of us who are here in the interest of learning.
Finally, I want to say this to the four men who are responsible: What you said is not just an affront to black people and not just an insult to women. It is offensive to all of us. The people you degraded most, however, are yourselves. It is hard to believe such behavior could possibly be attributed to ignorance, but if it is you need to do a lot of learning in a hurry, and you need a great deal of help. And if your behavior is just what it appears -- garden-variety racism and sexism -- you need to know it is not acceptable here. You came to the wrong college for that.
