The Incident
Brown University is an independent, coeducational Ivy League Institution that is made up of undergraduate and graduates. Located in Providence, Rhode Island and founded in 1764, Brown University is the seventh oldest college in the United States. The institution prides itself in a vibrant and diverse community that consists of 6,000 undergraduates, 2,000 graduate students, 400 medical school students, 5,000 online students, and nearly 700 faculty members. Undergraduate pursuing a bachelor’s degree are encouraged by the university’s commitment to undergraduate freedom which means students must take responsibility as architects of their course of study. Brown is recognized for its global reach, cultural events and numerous campus groups and activities.
Providence is the capital of Rhode Island and has a long history being established as one of the first cities in the United States. Providence is the third largest city in the New England region. The estimated population of Providence, Rhode Island is 178,042. African Americans constitute 16% of the city of Providence. Asians are 6.4% of Providence’s population with different ethnicities such as Cambodians, Chinese, Asian Indians, Loatians, and Koreans. Native Americans and Alaska Native make up 1.4% of the population. Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander’s make up 0.1% of the city. Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin make up 38.1% of the population. White persons not Hispanic make up 37.6% of the city. White persons made up 49.8% percent of the population. The city is noted for its multiculturalism and diversity because of the many communities that reside in Providence and the attractions that the city has. This case study will discuss points of multiculturalism and diversity using Shannon Sullivan’s “Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege.”
In the summer 2010, I served dually as a Mellon Initiative Scholar and an intern in the Leadership Alliance Summer Research Early Identification Program (LA SR-EIP) at Brown University and participated in a rigorous research program with Dr. Jin Li and Dr. Yoko Yamamoto. I conducted a study on Cultural and Economic Differences in Learning and Academic Performance: a Comparative Analysis among European American and Chinese American Children, which examined the cultural and economic differences in learning and academic performance. The results of the study revealed that it is important to examine cultural and socio-economic status of children to suggest school readiness in children. Our results suggested that children from low-income families and are minorities are far less prepared than children from middle class backgrounds. The significance of these findings suggested the importance and need for the research that I conducted at Brown University. It was during the summer of 2010 that I experienced many of the concepts that I have read about in Revealing Whiteness. There were three separate situations that occurred during the summer of 2010 that crystallized my experience at Brown University. Using the terminology found in Sullivan’s book, I will highlight incidents where the collective unconscious habits of white privilege formulated the actions of others that did and did not exist.
When I arrived at Brown University in the summer of 2010, I was excited and ecstatic to have this opportunity to engage in intellectual work that I was sure would lead me to higher heights and deeper depths. I moved into the dormitory in June of that summer, brimming with excitement I hurried my things into the room and settled my belongings. I scurried to the Leadership Alliance summer orientation where I met several students who were just as intellectual as I was. During the introductions, I met my group leader by the name of Nick. During the meeting, Nick made it a point to say that he was an openly gay doctoral student studying epidemiology. Our group was the Social Science cohort of the Brown University summer interns. By far we were not the students working long hours in biology or chemistry labs. We were not the one’s doing hard science. The other student’s that I met at that meeting were Danielle, Brandon, Gabrielle, Max, and Heather. Four of the summer interns in the Social Science cohort were African Americans: Danielle, Brandon, Gabrielle, and I. Heather identified herself as Hispanic/Latina from Chicago. Interesting, Max identified himself as other. By his appearance, he could pass for white, however, he was mixed with a black mother and a white father. Out of twenty seven the summer interns, there were nine students who were African American. The differences in our cohort were apparent of this. It seemed as if all of the white students (except four) were in the hard sciences and the rest of us were in the soft sciences. Even more strikingly, the group dynamics of the entire summer interns were evident on our down time in the dormitory.
Being undergraduates on our summer vacation, we partied. However, the summer interns partied differently. On one occasion I noticed that there was a party happening upstairs from my dorm. I walked upstairs to find all of the hard science student’s party. Yet, Heather and Max were also in the room. I found that interesting because I don’t recall seeing any of the black students in the room. I am not implying that there was or is anything wrong with the picture. On the other hand, I do not recall being invited to the party. Even though, I know that any dorm or house party is open to all who want to join in the fun. Yet, I felt as if my presence was not wanted. No one said anything to me expressing their displeasure in my presence. But nothing had to be said for me to feel the cold uncomfortableness of that moment. Shortly after making my observations, I left and returned to my room. Later, I asked the other black summer interns if they had heard about the party. No one said that they were invited. At that moment, we realized that something was different between the upstairs summer interns and the downstairs summer interns.
Of course, group dynamics suggests that the people you spend the time with the most are the ones you would hang out with more often. However, at this time, it felt as if it was done purposely without them even knowing that it was on purpose. That night we had discussed the differences between the summer interns upstairs and the ones that were downstairs. The ones upstairs were white or non-Hispanic, except for Max and Heather. The ones downstairs were black or Hispanic. It could also be observed the economic difference between the groups. The students upstairs were seemingly more affluent than the students that were downstairs. We left that night walking away with a different understanding of our placement in the program and which spaces we were allowed to venture to.
On another occasion where I recognized the concepts within Revealing Whiteness occurred during my assignments in my lab. Working with Dr. Jin Li was great. I learned a lot under her about research. As I stated before, we were working on a project that would examine the cultural differences of European Americans and Chinese Americans for reading, writing, and oral ability. We found that economic status was a common factor that contributed to access to education. However, I found that I was at a disadvantage as a summer intern. I did not enjoy my experience working in the education lab at Brown University. At times, I felt that because I was new, inexperienced, and from an HBCU that my work always had to be double checked. It is common for an intern to make mistakes and I had my share. On the other hand, it was the role of the advisor to give me the directions I needed to successfully complete the tasks that were given to me. At the end of my summer internship, my advisor and I had a meeting about my work. There were many great accolades given to me for the work that I did. She even said that I would receive a letter of recommendation.
Later, I was discouraged when I inquired about my letter of recommendation my advisor stated, “I thought about your request for a while and decided that I will not be able to write a glowing letter on your behalf. The reason is that we looked at the work you did during the summer and found many errors. Dr. Yamamoto has been spending a lot of time checking and rechecking the data you entered. We have yet to clean all the errors. I know that you are very a capable and motivated student, and you meant to do good work. But because of the state of the work we found, it would be unfair for me to write a letter that presents a different picture. I think that you would be better off asking another faculty member to write you a letter that truly reflects your strength.” Although, I may not be able to pinpoint an exact concept that would relate to Sullivan’s Revealing Whiteness, I could definitely feel an unconscious presence that slipped into her email to me. Previously she stated all interns would receive a letter of recommendation to a point where she disregards all of my “good work” and feels that I did not do a good enough job to receive a letter of recommendation.
The last incident occurred when I was with my group of friends traveling the streets of downtown Providence. We went to the annual Waterfire cultural events that were held on the waters that flowed through the city of Providence. During this event, the highlighted cultural group was African Americans. After the Waterfire concert, there was a rendition of hip hop and R&B songs that filled the streets. My cohort ventured further downtown to an Italian restaurant for a dinner. During dinner we experienced something that we never would have thought to have felt while we were staying at Brown. A car drove by us and it felt as if I were in the summer of 1967 in Georgia. The car was topless with three white women in it. One of the young ladies was on top of the car and yelled words that struck deep into my core. She exclaimed, “I hate (explicit) niggers,” and the car sped away in the distant night. At that moment, time froze and it was if we were in a still framed picture of the civil rights moment of the 1960’s. All that was needed was a few dozen police officers, a barking dog ready to be released, a few fire hoses spraying water while we were eating, and the chants of others with the same words. But this did not happen. Yet, this scene and that moment were weighted to feel as if those images were present. I looked at the white students in my cohort and they looked astonished. As if I could tell what they were thinking, the expressions said, “What are you going to do.” I had a bottle in my hand and if I had thought about it what I would have done was throw it at the car. But then I am glad I didn’t because what would that resolve or prove. Even worse, would I be publicly thronged for acting out of character; another black Negro that did not know how to control his emotions in public. Finally, as we were walking away from that situation and that night, one of my friends broke down and cried and exclaimed, “No matter how far we go, no matter how much education we will get, we will still be nothing but niggers to them.” Brandon tried to explain the situation away with reason and intellect. But the moment was more than just what was said but what was felt. That moment made us feel so low while attending a prestigious Ivy League
Sullivan states, “ethical slippages and phantoms – these concepts describe a society’s collective unconscious in its complex fluid relationship with individual habits and capture the broad geographical and historical expanse of habit formation.” It is possible that over time and with Providence’s historical roots as being the founding cities of this nation that there are several phantoms that still exist. Sullivan suggests that cultural habits and collective habits give the fuel to individual unconscious habits. She also notes that the “collective unconscious habits of white privilege…both do and do not seem to exist." In my interactions with the students who were student interns there was this collective unconscious that existed but did not exist. I could not readily call their actions as racism because some of them did not realize that their actions were racist. Moreover, their actions portrayed what Sullivan describes as the phantom that slips into their unconscious behaviors toward the minority cohort.
Furthermore, Sullivan describes the space that creates and is created by white privilege. She notes that, “Space, race, and place are constituted transactionally such that space is raced and that bodies raced through their lived spatiality.” She further explained that, “the idea of space as racially neutral often is complicit with white privilege, that spatiality can contribute to the racial and racist division of a civilized “we” from a wild “them,” and that systems of white domination respectively tend to allow and constrain white and non-white people to live their spatiality in different way.” Thus, my interaction with the student interns was the creation of spaces that were divided to the “we” and “them” concept. The very fact that majority of the minority student lived downstairs and the majority of the majority students lived upstairs created the physical space that also constituted the lived spatiality that Sullivan describes. It was as if the space formed the racist habits and played out in our interactions with each other. These actions are a phantom-like in that they are there and not there at the same time. Thus, the effects of white privilege are there and not there, influencing our actions consciously and subconsciously.
Sullivan furthers her understanding of these spaces by stating that, “the conception of space and habits of lived spatiality as race-free constitutes a false neutrality that makes invisible the inequalities of raced space, rendering one powerless in the face of, and often complicit with, racism.” In the case of my research advisor, I believed that she was not acting in a racist way, however, her actions were complicit with the historical and embedded notions of white privilege in a conservative community. What strikes me as odd in this context is that my advisor and the other RA’s were of Asian ethnicity. Of course, I recognized that I have made my mistakes on that research project; however, I believe that there were some notions of ontological expansiveness. The place in which these actions occurred only furthered the agenda of white privilege. Sullivan suggests that, “the rhetoric of place often combines with settled habits of space to simultaneously encourage the ontological expansiveness of white people and constrain the lived spatiality of non-white people.” The actions of my advisors to check and recheck my work was unconsciously suggesting that I did not belong in that place and although they were minorities themselves, the agenda of white privilege to encourage ontological expansiveness was only fostered in that environment.
My experience at Brown University in the summer of 2010 allowed me to have several appropriate relationships as Sullivan described. By this I mean that I was in situations where the appropriate relationship was that of the appropriation of my creativity. Further, I can draw connections to the appropriations of generations of African American’s before. In the experience I had at the African American festival that led to the horrible comment that was made to me and the group, we were in a situation of an appropriate relationship. The appropriate relationship occurred during the time of the festival. It was obvious that the locals were not used to celebrating African American culture. In fact, most of the cultural festivals are geared towards other groups. African American’s only got one day to celebrate our heritage. Yet, we were not wanted. Sullivan suggests that, “if a dominant group will not voluntarily make room for oppressed groups’ needs and desires – and dominant groups rarely do – then oppressed groups might need to create a separate space in which they can develop, nurture, and satisfy them.” At the end of the summer, during this cultural event we tried to create this space after being bombarded with ontological expansiveness of white privilege. To our chagrin, we were called niggers. Even worse, we were told by a white woman how much she hated African Americans. It was at this moment, I realized how much we were not wanted in this space or place. I also realized that no matter what we did through the creativity of our intelligentsia in education that it did not matter. Thus, my friend wailed, “No matter how far we go, no matter how much education we will get, we will still be nothing but niggers to them!”
Through the reading of Sullivan and analyzing the case study, I have realized that I have finally come to terms with that summer. In order to be social justice advocates, we need to recognize the collective unconscious habits of white privilege that are there and not there. I must actively engage in the practice of resistance. I also realized that even African Americans can become complacent and complicit to the powers of white privilege. As much as our history would dictate our actions in the civil rights movement, we cannot just simply call someone or their actions as racist. In order to be freedom fighters to resist racial inequalities we must help our counterparts become more aware of the white privilege that operates in our institutions, social interactions, and environments. Sullivan suggests that any activist needs to continually the effects of our activism on ourselves and in the world. We must individually take responsibility to expose and change them with the hopes to stop the attempts of unconscious habits of white privilege. I will always remember what Emmitt Till’s mother said, “I have no reason to hate, but I will pursue justice for the rest of my life.”
