To be Black in Historically White Spaces
America as a nation is 240+ years old. In that period, we’ve had some truly defining historic moments. From winning independence in 1776, to concluding a civil war where brother fought against brother in 1865, to granting women the right to vote in 1920, America prides itself on these defining moments. The ‘right’ side of history is what we call it.
As a black person, not surprisingly, I take great interest in what was marked by the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. In addition to liberty and justice for all, it explicitly was intended to end segregation in America.
While this was a breakthrough moment for America, 190 years of oppression, abuse, and discrimination takes its toll on a nation. We see it in the aftermath. The war on drugs, which has been coined a domestic war on black people. Mass incarceration of blacks, which some people would describe as the new institution of slavery, replacing the plantation model of the 18th and 19th century. And tensions boiling over, with the Detroit riots in 1967 and the Rodney King riots in 1992 (and a number of others in between).
It’s difficult to undo 190 years of history, emotion, and experience by signing a paper. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. And we still deal with the aftermath every single day.
Segregation is a particularly intriguing phenomenon, and it’s the focus of this piece. I always find it interesting when I hear people make comments along the lines of, “Why do we need Historically Black Universities? If we had Historically White Universities, it would be racist.” Well, we do have historically white universities. In fact, you probably received your degree from one, as did I. Phenomenal schools, in fact. The University of Pittsburgh, my alma mater, is a historically white university. Ohio State is a historically white university. University of Georgia is a historically white university. UCLA is a historically white university. Princeton is a historically white university. This is by no means a comprehensive list. I could go on listing university after university, but I think you catch my drift.
The overwhelming majority of colleges and universities that existed in any form prior to the end of segregation were not built to educate black people. Quite the contrary, in fact.
Black people were not welcomed, desired, or invited to places that were designated for white people, including their schools and universities. One of the results was HBCU’s (Historically black colleges and universities), where blacks were able to receive an education, albeit those institutions at the time were under resourced and under staffed. In the 19th and 20th centuries, these schools, mostly inferior to their white counterparts, prepared and trained blacks for low-level positions in society with fewer advancement opportunities. That is, the segregation in higher education would ultimately produce segregation in society as a whole as well, with blacks underrepresented in higher-income occupations and overrepresented in lower-income occupations. The disparity in income would also produce segregation in neighborhoods as well, as blacks would only earn enough to live in the city’s more modest neighborhoods. We could continue this exercise for a while, but it’s easy to see how this segregation affected many different facets of life.
Here’s the kicker: Almost 60 years following the Civil Rights Act, I still think America is wrestling with having black people in historically white spaces.
The examples abound. I’ll draw on some of my own experiences, but I’ll highlight some other well-known examples, too.
In the entire history of my PhD program, we’ve had 1 (one) black graduate. We’ll be at 100 alumni in just a few years, and in our entire history, we’ve had 1 black graduate. By the time I finish in 2023, I’ll be the 3rd. Yeah, I would say this is a historically white space. I do love my school though. And all things considered, I would say it’s a fairly inclusive environment. Serendipitously enough, many of the faculty here do research on racism, discrimination, stereotypes, inequality, privilege, and the like. Yes, even the white faculty. Don’t get it twisted; they know what time it is.
This is a tremendous place to be a scholar, and if I could go back, I’d pick my institution all over again. Fact.
Nevertheless, I’m not naïve to the fact that, even at my institution, having black students in your PhD program is somewhat ‘pioneering’. I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my concerns about wearing sweatpants to school is that someone will think I’m a janitor. As frustrating as it is to type that out, I don’t fully hold that against them though… a PhD program is a historically white space. There just aren’t a lot of people who look like me at this level of education… and the people who do look like me are usually secretaries or janitors. And while for the most part I’ve had positive experiences, I’m also aware of the fact that there are things about how I dress, and the color of my skin, that greatly increase the likelihood that someone may assume I’m not supposed to be here.
My brother, who’s a physician, has similar thoughts. Perhaps by virtue of the fact he’s in medicine, he takes even more interest in it than I do. Although his hospital is fairly laid back with the dress code, he tells me that he insists on wearing a tie to work, every single day. He doesn’t have to. But he wants to look the part. He’s a black physician, after all. In some ways, he’s a pioneer in a space with very few people who look like him.
His rationale: “I spent 4 years in undergrad taking the most rigorous science courses my university had to offer. I struggled through another 4 years of medical school, took ridiculously stressful board exams, and by God’s grace, I completed residency. If I show up to work every day, and people in this hospital assume I’m not a doctor because I’m black, we’re going to have a problem.”
My brother doesn’t work in Atlanta, a cosmopolitan international city with many, many accomplished black professionals. He’s not in Houston. He isn’t in DC. He’s in rural Georgia, working at a hospital. His concern, I think, is very well received.
The previous examples are a bit more proactive than they are reactive, so maybe I’ll illustrate with different examples. I’m reminded of the hashtag in October 2016 #WhatADoctorLooksLike. In a span of just a week, 2 black female doctors were not allowed to tend to patients in need of medical attention on their Delta flight. The flight attendants insisted they needed “actual physicians”. Ironically, in one case, the man was treated on the plane by nurses, even though there was a (black female) physician on the plane. These are women who not only work in a male-dominated profession, but they’re also working in historically white spaces: the operating room, the emergency room, etc. We’re not just talking about microaggressions and subtle comments that make people feel uncomfortable anymore. In the extreme, we have lives at stake, and we’re still adjusting to having black people in historically white spaces.
I’ll admit, I’ve been giving this a lot more thought recently, based on things that transpired in 2018.
I’m reminded of the incident at the Starbucks in Philadelphia. Having spent 3 years in Philadelphia, a city that’s 45% black, I already had an impression of what I would find when I started reading about it. After all, I can only think of 2 Starbucks in Philadelphia: one in Center City (this is where the incident happened), which is an affluent Philadelphia business district, and the other is on campus by the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, two world-class, private institutions. In other words, while Philadelphia has hundreds of coffee shops all over the city, both of those Starbucks are in locations that probably serve far fewer black customers. That’s not good. And it’s not bad. It’s simply an observation about where they do business. Say what you will about the case, because I’m not here to sway your opinion, but I think it had a great deal to do with those 2 black customers being in a historically white space with a historically white clientele.
I don’t think for a second that case was specific to Starbucks or Center City. It could also happen at a boutique coffee shop in Northern Liberties, or a Dunkin Donuts in Old City, or some other coffee shop in another up-scale neighborhood of Philadelphia. But my impression is, this Starbucks in Center City is probably a historically white space, which greatly increased the likelihood of this incident taking place.
There was also the incident with Bob Marley’s granddaughter. She was in California for a music festival with some friends, and she rented an AirBnB for the occasion. A few minutes after they left their Air BnB, a neighbor called the police on them, because she thought the house was being robbed. The officers who showed up had never heard of Air BnB before, so that certainly didn’t make the situation any better. By her own account, the neighbor stated she called the police on them because they didn’t smile or wave back at her when she waved.
Man, it’s a sad day in America when we call the police on people who don’t wave at us. The interaction with the police wasn’t much better. Even though they’d never heard of Air BnB, when the girls showed them the Air BnB app and tried to call their host to get things worked out, the cops continued to scrutinize them, because they weren’t convinced it was legitimate. But as a black person, you have to wonder, just how much do you need to do in order to avoid having the police called on you?
It’s not a rhetorical question; it’s a serious one. Cases like this have been popping up more and more.
Of course, you could say this all could have been avoided if Marley just waved. You could also say if the neighbor didn’t like how she waved, or her facial expression while waving, she may have called the police anyway. It’s tough to say at this point.
You know, the incident with the graduate student at Yale seems all too familiar to me. A young, black graduate student fell asleep in the lobby of her dorm, and another student called the police on her. To be fair, that area of the dorm was a common space… it’s not designated or intended for sleeping, but I think most people who’ve attended college agree that students fall asleep in rather unusual places during the grind of the semester… conference rooms, libraries, lobbies, etc. Although these aren’t designated sleeping areas, it’s not unusual to take a power nap, wake up, and resume your studying. In this case, an elite, private institution with a student body that’s 71% white, I can’t help but feel seeing a sleeping black person prompted the student to wonder if this black person slumped over in the chair was a student or someone avoiding the whipping cold of the Connecticut winter (a legitimate possibility; we can’t exclude that).
I’m sure it doesn’t help that much of the student body at Yale, including the 20% of students coming from outside of the US, probably haven’t interacted regularly with black people of any kind (African, Caribbean, etc.).
Seriously. If you’re an international student from southeast Asia (India, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.), I may even venture to say you see black people for the first time when you step off the plane and proceed through security at a US airport. I don’t hold that against you. A lack of exposure to black people doesn’t make you a bad person; certainly it doesn’t make you racist. But maybe you didn’t come to campus at an ivy league university expecting to see people of the darker variety. It’s a historically white space, after all. Maybe you see someone asleep in the lobby of your dorm and assume they’re in the wrong place.
The story at Yale hits close to home. That easily could have been me, you know. I’m a grad student. I’m black. I certainly pull crazy hours for school. I’m absolutely in a historically white space. I can’t even imagine the psychological trauma that would come with working crazy hours on my dissertation, taking a quick nap, and waking up to find somebody called the police on me… a PhD is already socially, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically isolating. When the people in your hallways call the police on you, that’s an entirely different kind of isolation.
The Starbucks case, the Marley case, and the Yale case all took place last Spring, btw. I was in the thick of school, but after the semester finished, and I went on vacation to Peru and Chile, I really had to think through what was unfolding across the country.
To be fair, this is pretty pervasive… and that’s something we don’t mention enough. Before proceeding further, let me be clear: I’m not here to scrutinize the white populace. I promise. Here’s an interesting thought: the biases we’re discussing here can be internalized by black people in historically white spaces, too. Yes. Even me. I’m not exempt from this, either. I’m human, after all.
My brother, a physician, had a black colleague who previously worked as a physician in the midwest. He joked that prior to moving to Georgia, he would pull up to the hospital he was working at in Wisconsin, and park his car. When he stepped out of his vehicle and started approaching the building, some of the black employees working in facilities would inform him that his parking space was reserved for physicians. He was bewildered… he parked his car there because he is a physician. And it’s a physician’s parking space. The [black] men and women in facilities obviously weren’t expecting him to leave his car in a historically white parking space, though. They probably weren’t used to seeing black physicians.
It’s complicated.
Even while I was on vacation in Morocco a few weeks ago, I got yet another reminder. I have a conference coming up for school in Portland, Oregon. While I was in Marrakesh, I got an email from the conference organizers that read ‘Portland Doubletree Hotel Incident’. I thought two things to myself.
Possibility 1: Was there a shooting? (Oh, God, PLEASE, no.)
Possibility 2: Was this yet another incident of a black man or woman in a historically white space?
The email subject was kind of ominous. It’s sad that’s where my mind went, but it’s probably even sadder that I was correct. I read the email, and my suspicions were confirmed: possibility 2. Right on the nose.
I usually don’t like doing what I’m about to do… the case happened late December, and we still don’t have a ton of details at this point. Being the analytical person I am, I usually reserve taking a [public] position of any type until I have additional information, for at least 2 reasons. First, I don’t have much faith in the media and how we present the news these days. I’ll wait for more information, so I can evaluate more comprehensively. Secondly, I’m not trying to go back and forth on hypotheticals. It’s much easier to discuss these things once you have more info. But the case is timely, so I’ll put those things aside and weigh in.
What we know at this point was a black man, Jermaine, was staying at the Double Tree, and he was placing a phonecall in the lobby when he was approached by security. The security asked Jermaine if he was a guest, and he informed security he was and held up his key card for his room. This didn’t seem to satisfy security. The guard ask for his room number, but Jermaine continued with his phonecall with his mother, as it was an urgent matter that needed his attention. After security consulted the hotel manager, and police, Jermaine was kicked out the hotel, escorted by officers. Ironically, they told him he could be charged with trespassing, even though they were escorting him to the room he reserved, to retrieve his belongings, so he could be escorted out of the hotel where he had a reservation to stay that evening.
It’s not clear why Jermaine was singled out among the many guests in the hotel’s busy lobby, after the concert he attended.
It’s kind of funny, but it’s also kind of not funny. As I mentioned before, I generally don’t like to weigh in on these things (publicly) until I have more information, but the case is timely, as I go to an academic conference, in Portland (mostly white), with 5,000 of the most brilliant scholars in the field of social psychology (mostly white).
It’s tough being black in historically white spaces. The lingering scars of segregation are still pronounced and fresh. Just because you don’t notice doesn’t make it any less true. Signing the Civil Rights Acts, understandably, could only do so much. It’s difficult to undo American history.
I’ll be honest, it kind of sucks writing something like this… there’s no idealistic twist at the end. There’s no Nigerian proverb to close with. There’s no comedic relief, per se. Sorry to disappoint. It be like that sometimes. While I’ve, personally, had mostly positive experiences in historically white spaces, it probably doesn’t say much about my artistry if I can’t effectively tell other people’s stories, particularly the stories of many people I care about that have NOT had positive experiences. Those stories are important to me. So, here they are.
This is for everyone continuing in #TheBeautifulStruggle.
Some random thoughts.
Nnamdi