September 30, 2016 - 17:48
Eighty-five years ago, Enid Cook walked through the halls of Bryn Mawr creating a legacy with a chance at radical change. Fast forward to the present-- where exactly does Bryn Mawr stand with that notion of inclusion? Has it been affirmed or is it only an ailing hope? Through Anne Dalke’s analysis of the concept of “slipping” and the work of Grace Pusy and Emma Kioko on the “Black at Bryn Mawr” tour, an initiative to retrace the absence of black history on campus, it becomes apparent that the school has yet to meet its goals as a liberal and progressive institution. When the school was founded more than 130 years ago, incidentally following the Reconstruction era, its choice to exclude Black women from its enrollment prevented any forms of intersectionality and sought merely to provide white feminists a place for higher education. Presently, however, the school claims to be culturally “diverse” but in the class profile of 2020 a meager “7%” of students identify as “African-American,” while “38%” identify as “White.” This phenomenon of claiming racial inclusion and falling short is referred to in Tegu Cole’s op-ed piece “The White-Savior Industrial Complex.” as Cole scrutinizes the “white savior” mentality as “not [being] about justice,” and rather paternalistic in its enactment. Racism recently reared its ugly head when two students used a confederate flag and Mason-Dixon line to indicate their Southern pride—which was received by many other people on campus as a symbol of slavery and white supremacist violence.
Did they slip? Was the response to it “American sentimentality?” (Cole).
Emily Elstad, Dalke’s student, suggests that a slip is “a messy, slow—indeed, inevitable and unend- ing—process” (Dalke). The process of a slip is making an error of judgment, realizing the fault, apologizing, and changing one’s mindset. In a sense, it's a redemption for the pain caused by the person who “slipped.” It offers that person enlightenment brought about by a rebuttal, either internally or externally. Through these errors and revisions of character, “we gain a deeper understanding of each other and the world” (Dalke). The women who put up the confederate flag may have initially been prompted to because the culture that they were raised in found it acceptable. Their ignorance of the destruction that the flag could cause on other Bryn Mawr students, the faculty, and the staff and might have assumed the flag would represent “heritage not hate.” They slipped and made a lapse of judgment, but instead asked to remove the flag they became defensive and this is where they failed. They failed to correct their slip and, when asked, dug their feet into the ground and made their insult intentional. The difference between their first and second error is their reaction to the knowledge of the mistake. This idea of “unintentional vs intentional” is illustrated beautifully by Elstad: “Thinking metaphorically, sometimes only by slipping and falling to the floor do we notice that there is something down there that needs to be cleaned” (qted in Dalke).Phobias and discriminations of all sorts need to be cleaned. That is why slipping is so important-- it gives people the chance to learn.
When Bryn Mawr was formed as a Quaker college for women, as an extension of all-male Haverford, progressive white feminists took an ardent stand against gender inequality and fought oppression. These white, elitist women were ignorant, but not innocent to the damage they caused minorities through exclusion. White supremacy tears through a country and leaves people hating and hurting while creating often and irremediable divide.. M. Carey Thomas was the ringleader of the racist philosophy that worked to exploit black help and define the school as “whites only.” This was a “slip” in a time when racism was more acceptable in certain circles than it is now. In addition, the Bryn Mawr community slipped because the period had cultured them into believing that race affected ability, but “benevolent racism was still racism” (Elstad). Today, rooms and areas that have “[marginalized] Black bodies” still lie “at the heart of campus (Black at Bryn Mawr).
How do we evolve from such a past without erasing it?
In today’s world, the Bryn Mawr community claims to knows better. Yet we, members of that community, slip everyday back into institutionalized inequalities and write it off as accidental ignorance. Has the school truly offered atonement or merely covered up its faulty history with a pro diversity rally cry hiding “under the banner of ‘making a difference’” (Cole). This does not mean that the community is inherently racist or that it promotes hate but preaching“minority majority” without out much evidence of its actual presence is counter intuitive. Being Black at Bryn Mawr is an entirely different experience than being white and “politically correct” at Bryn Mawr. A vast majority of students are accepting, good-hearted people whom by no means seek to marginalize or exclude. However, as Cole points out ”A singer may be innocent; never the song” (Cole). In similarity the song in the college’s case is institutionalized racism that has been alive and well for the past 130 years and, unfortunately, a simple desire to eradicate inequality does not eradicate reinforced inequalities. The community may proclaim its progressive, liberal tendencies but there is a thin line between seeking “justice" and having an “emotional experience” when claiming racial inclusion “that validates privilege” (Cole). The college must be vigilant of its aim when claiming “minority majority” while simultaneously being honest and diligent in holding true to the “demands that each of us [have to] serve justice as much as [possible]” (Cole). Bryn Mawr students slip, yes, all people slip, but it is what we learn from that slip that ultimately matters.
Checking one’s privilege has often been received with animosity and cries of reverse racism, but all people who have been entitled to more opportunity based on race, gender, sexuality, religious affiliation, or economic background are called on to respect and to acknowledge their positions of power. Unfortunately, however, until there is tangible change, the Bryn Mawr community willtakea “passive... neutral” stance on race.The Bryn Mawr community has come a long way from M Carey Thomas’s blatant racism, but, the confederate flag incident makes it apparent that this fight is not yet over.
A sounding alarm for intersectionality must resonate among all races and genders at Bryn Mawr College. 550 students joining together to take a stand against hatred is one step in the right direction, but as President Kim Cassidy stated, “I don’t want to suggest that everything’s fine now. It’s a process, and we’re working on it.” Race is still a major part of identity and the president's acknowledgement of the “slip” starts a much needed conversation about future comprehensive reform. The responsibility is not on the oppressed, but rather the oppressor and bystanders who lie witness to such forms of prejudice to enact change. By “slipping” we are humbled, it is human to make mistakes, but it is in our humanity that those mistakes are rectified. When there is a realization of wrongdoing, there is only one way it can be corrected-- fearlessly fighting back against future slips and intentional acts of racism and any other phobias that cause harm. That is when Bryn Mawr can become its ideals of “a community diverse in nature and democratic in practice.”
So maybe the times haven’t changed, but that does not mean they can’t.
Works Cited
Cole, Teju. “The White-Savior Industrial Complex.” The Atlantic. MAR 2012. Web. September 30 2016.
Dalke, Anne and Jody Cohen. "Slipping." Steal This Classroom: Teaching and Learning
Unbound. New York: Punctum Books, forthcoming 2017.
Kioko, Emma and Grace Pusey. “Black at Bryn Mawr.” Brynmawr.edu, 2015. Tour Builder. Web. 16 September 2016.