I am writing in response to Michael Hawley's Nov. 5 op-ed outlining the "ugly side" of Black Solidarity Day and to the attitudes expressed by his piece.
Let me first say that I am a white, male Tufts alum who just graduated in May and has not been on campus since the academic year started. I was not present for this year's Black Solidarity Day event, although I have attended in the past, and do not know what was actually said by anyone there.
But because Hawley has chosen to judge an entire event and the sentiment expressed by it after walking past it twice, I'll do an equally distant job defending it and those who participated in it because, frankly, I think black Tufts students have better things to do with their time than to have to defend, over and over again, events that validate who they are and their presence on Tufts' campus.
Hawley's op-ed is certainly not the first of its kind to express angst and displeasure at a community event hosted by a cultural group and a feeling of being targeted, singled-out and victimized by it. Unfortunately, his feelings are all-too-common for many whites at Tufts, as evidenced by the variety of white individuals, often male, who have alluded to these feelings in past campus opinion pieces as well.
Frankly, Hawley missed the point. If he had attended the entire event, he would have had the appropriate context in which to interpret all that was being said. I was not there and do not know if Professor Peniel Joseph did in fact make the single and completely isolated statement that "black people have been here longer than anyone" — which I think we all can agree would have been misinformed to say the least — but neither of us can say for sure what was meant by such a statement because neither Hawley nor I attended the event.
The same holds for the statement "black people are more willing to bleed for this country than anyone else," although there is historical evidence that certainly supports that claim, since beginning in the 1970s, blacks enlisted in the military at much higher rates than their white counterparts. That's not to say that Hawley's friends in the ROTC should not have been offended because, again, without the appropriate context of the statement and this historical data, it would be easy to misinterpret it. But to call it "ignorant" and "racist" for a professor to claim that whites are less likely to serve in the military is nothing short of uninformed racism on Hawley's part, when, in fact, whites are ... less likely to serve in the military.
I do not know if Professor Joseph called to white students only to come and listen; I have heard varying takes on it. But let's just assume that he did indeed call out "you white folks" to join the rally. To then jump to a claim of "victimhood" on Hawley's part shows nothing but his sheer ignorance of the event and why it — and those like it — are held in the first place. For it is his very claim of victimhood — a claim made by three white males at a white institution with white professors and people in power who will listen to them, white males who may have gotten called to form a rally on the campus center patio one single day out of their entire Tufts careers — that proves the very need for rallies like it.
Because real victimization comes from the invalidation of your history and culture by the institution that was meant to educate you, rather than an institution in which you end up speaking about and educating your uninformed white classmates about the black experience. Real victimization is the everyday othering through the multitude of subtle instances that occur to black students at Tufts — whether it's being asked consistently about their hair, self-segregation or any other number of questions that pick apart every different aspect of their experience. Real victimization is when you hold a rally to celebrate the incredible struggles and accomplishments of your ancestors that have gotten you to where you are today, against all odds and institutions of oppression, only to have an ignorant white student write an op-ed saying how offended he was by it. When he overheard it. Passing it by.
Hawley's last claim about the discussion of police brutality in a Black Solidarity Day rally, claiming that it says nothing about "either race" and how anecdotal evidence about blacks victimizing whites is just as easily accessible, demonstrates his profound lack of knowledge when it comes to the reality of how the judicial system and police forces as a whole operate; it in fact says everything about both races. Namely, how cops with guns protecting white institutions can shoot and kill unarmed black males with no consequences. There is a whole list of names you can Google — Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo or Patrick Dorismond to start — to learn more about how this still continues today. (Or for example, how the poem that initiated the rally's conversation about police brutality in the first place was written by a girl whose brother was gunned down by a white cop.)
Hawley's question as to why a rally "truly about solidarity and unity with other communities" would "so prominently feature commentary and stories such as these" and his request for an explanation by Professor Joseph strikes the core of what this is all about. Why would a rally about unity with other communities address issues of white-on-black police brutality? It makes perfect sense to me, as I think it should to most whites. Unless of course, we see those acts of violence by whites against black and brown people as representative of us whites as a group. If that's the case, why keep our robes and hoods in the closet? If not, instead of walking past those rallies, it is our responsibility to stand with members of those groups that we have — for too long — marginalized and dehumanized, letting them know that white does not mean racist.
I speak on this now after having graduated, which affords me the privilege of commenting from a distance on something I wasn't there for. But something must be said, whether from a current white student or a former one, disagreeing with Hawley's sentiments. The only "brand of racism" Tufts is nurturing is one that reflects much of the world outside our bubble. It's time we, as whites, honestly encourage the dismantling of racism, even if only in our own Tufts bubble, and redefine what white means to us.
I'll choose fighting against racism instead of trying to uphold it.
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Alexi Paraschos graduated from Tufts University in 2009 with a degree in American studies. He was a member of S-Factor and the Tufts Third Day Gospel Choir and the co-founder of the Social Justice Arts Initiative.
