September 18, 2015 - 15:09
Bryn Mawr College has the reputation of being a safe zone; an inclusive community that supposedly accepts all those who may have felt like outcasts before they came to the college. However, just because a community or an institution has the intention of being more accepting and tolerant, does not mean that it is free of “slippage”. One definition of “slippage” is essentially when a person or a community unconsciously reverts back to whatever ideas society has ingrained to us. However, it does not necessarily have to be involuntary. Slippage can also be the allowance of ideas to slip or be forgotten. It can be a result of laziness or ignorance or even privilege, when people don’t check themselves fastidiously enough. On the Black at Bryn Mawr tour, this is exactly what happened. Through one way or another, there was slippage on the part of everyone involved.
First and foremost, there was the obvious slippage on the part of M. Carey Thomas and the institution. Thomas and the college allowed the idea that all humans are equal to slip out of their grasp, most definitely voluntarily. They allowed the societal beliefs at the time to exist, without any challenges. In fact, it is true that M. Carey Thomas even reinforced these oppressive beliefs by rejecting black students or by making them unwelcome on campus.
The effects of this slippage are long-lasting and difficult to change. They influence almost everything the college stands for. M. Carey Thomas, despite being a racist and an elitist, is still glorified for her contribution as first president. While the full story of her has begun to come out in recent years, she still has a presence on this campus. Students hear about her involvement with the college at customs week and her biography takes up a large part of the Black at Bryn Mawr tour. She has an entire building dedicated to her in a prominent place on campus, with no protest from anyone at all. More importantly, her ideas still persist up until this day. What was entirely shocking to find out about Bryn Mawr is that there is still a race disparity on the faculty, but that the dining staff still consists mostly of people of color. Bryn Mawr cannot call itself a diverse population if the faculty and staff members are not diverse as well. While this is a more subtle problem of the college, it is still a way in which it is slipping. The administration probably has not prioritized creating a diverse population because the problem is no longer glaringly obvious. However, it is important to constantly be reminded of the ways in which an institution can counteract the privilege of one group just by hiring more people of color. Slippage can happen inadvertently, but the results of it may be more difficult to fix.
On the Black at Bryn Mawr tour, slippage also occurred on the part of the tour guides. At various points in the tour there were opportunities to humanize the black people who studied and worked at Bryn Mawr, but this was not done. Instead, there was no real face to the black servants who worked underground or the ones that lived on the fourth floor of Merion. They were merely an abstract group that once existed, not really seen as real individuals, but as a group of people. While it is understandable that in their research the guides did not find sufficient evidence to create multiple stories, it would have been nice to have at least one perspective of a former person of color who studied or worked at the college. The slip here occurred most definitely involuntarily, probably because it doesn’t often occur to a lot of people to give disadvantaged people their own voice or perhaps because minorities are often not encouraged to have a voice. Grace Pusey is definitely not completely at fault, but when dealing with such a sensitive topic, it is generally better to be all-inclusive and to think of all perspectives, not just those of the white students.
Finally, when our class was discussing our reaction of Black at Bryn Mawr, there was definitely more than enough slippage. First and foremost, we all assumed that Grace Pusey identified as a white woman just based on her looks. Until we were reminded that she may not identify as white, we all were judging her based off of what we believed were white attributes. A lot of assumptions were made when the tour was criticized, which should result in further research into the whole project. Also, a lot of people claimed that the Black at Bryn Mawr story would be better told by a black person. However, does this mean that it is better to have a black person who only knows that basic facts of the project be the tour guide, or is someone who has been working on this project and has been passionate about it run the tour? Is it the responsibility of the oppressed to speak out about their injustices, or can allies help as well? Can allies work independently of the underprivileged groups, or does there have to be a connection? While these questions cannot be answered, they are definitely worth thinking about. Both our class objections and these counterpoints are essential things to think about, but without the proper background knowledge, it is difficult to judge anything properly. We as a class (in my opinion) judged too quickly without knowing the entire backstory. We slipped based on a couple of assumptions that we made.
All in all, slippage can occur to anyone and everyone. It is not unavoidable; it can occur to even those who think that they are well-versed in social injustices. However, the most important thing that we can do is to acknowledge these slips and to fix them as best as we can. If we recognize that we are socially conditioned to think a certain way and correct that thinking, it will be easier for the next generations to steer away from the narrow-minded ideas of the past.