Breaking the Silence, Students Talk Campus Racism

By Jeff Coltin

On Wednesday night, a group of white students came together in an off-campus apartment to talk about race. At the same time, a group of students of color met in the library to talk about race. It was not for an assignment. It was not for a club. It was just two groups of students coming together to talk about an issue that affected all of them.

“We met because we think that voices of students of color need to be heard, because now, they feel kind of silenced,” said Jane, who asked that we do not use her real name. She was one of about a dozen students of color who came together to share their experiences of racism on campus.

“We all have stories,” she said. “They seem like isolated incidents… it’s really powerful for us to hear that it’s happening to a lot of us.”

“There’s a general hostility towards the Bronx,” Jane gave as an example. “Specifically, people calling the Bronx residents ‘locals,’ and how racially coded that is. I’ve heard people say ‘oh no I don’t want to go to that party, they let locals in.’”

It’s an identity thrust upon non-white students at the expense of other identities.

“A number of our people in [our] color group, we’ve been called ‘locals’ because [other students think] we don’t look like Fordham students, we look like we belong more in the Bronx.”

Another example Jane gave was more institutional.

“Usually I’m one of two or three people of color in a classroom,” she said. “So a lot of the time, whenever race or anything race related is brought up, I am singled out by the professor to speak on it, as if I am the person who can speak for every black or Latino person in the community.”

The two groups — racial minorities and whites — planned to meet separately: two groups where people can freely express their experiences with race and racism at Fordham without fearing that they will offend, or that the conversation is not for them.

To the students of color, the white group’s very existence was a source of hope.

“We were excited that it was happening with white people too. Because that’s the people we feel like who really need to be talking about this,” said Jane.

The white students hope to play an allied role.

“[The] most important thing was keeping in mind how to keep ourselves accountable to people of color and seeing our role as being supportive of them, following their leadership,” said Rachel, which is also an alias.

Rachel, a white student who helped coordinate the meeting, said it was motivated by an Undoing Racism workshop she attended and a recent talk on policing and racism in America at Lincoln Center, but she emphasized the idea of confronting racism at Fordham was “not a recent thing.”

In the spring of 2012, the university faced a spate of hateful incidents, from an expletive written on a black student’s door to another written on a bathroom wall.  An anti-racist “End the Silence” campaign at Fordham created in response garnered media attention and drew statements from university administration, including Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university, but advocates — including the NAACP — felt the response was underwhelming since no policy changes were made.

Jane said she heard the campaign got squashed three years ago, so she is choosing to stay anonymous for now. But, she is not happy about it.

“Why should I be afraid about this? This is my school and all I really want is for people of color to be valued and acknowledged. It’s not a big thing to ask.”

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Jeff Coltin is The Fordham Ram Bronx correspondent.

Editor’s Note: The writer originally used the word “white” instead of “Caucasian.” It was changed to “Caucasian” in the editing process. We have changed it back to the writer’s originally wording to accurately depict his writing. Please note the print version does use “Caucasian.”