The Problem Is Not The Problem
An Open Letter to Biola University
While I was an undergraduate at Biola University, a prominent Christian college 20 minutes outside of Los Angeles, a mentor of mine would often remind me that, “The problem is not the problem.” I worked in student development, with the residents of the university and my mentor would say, that what seems to be the problem initially is a symptom of a deeper, more toxic problem. The initial problem, what gets your attention, opens us to the deeper, wider issue at hand. That deeper problem, he said, is what we’re always looking for, and the one we must address.
Biola now faces a hate crime incident in which a swastika was drawn above the dorm room door of an African-American student. As a Black alumnus of Biola, I have been frustrated by the way Biola has portrayed the event to the media, offering an image that contradicts the lived experiences of the Black students who attend the school. That image is represented in a statement released by the administration via email to the student body last week:
“It needs to be clearly and publicly stated that such an action is in direct opposition to Biola’s values of truth, transformation and testimony, which are intended to ensure that our students are equipped in mind and character to impact the world for the Lord Jesus Christ. Our community is to be characterized by Christ’s love in order to be a relevant and redemptive voice in a changing world.”
In the days since the email was sent, there have been multiple student statements that have surfaced on social media that contradict this narrative. The statements make it clear: the social reality for Black students on campus is much different from the image Biola has chosen to portray to the media.
This misrepresentation of the campus climate and culture is dangerous. Misrepresentation in this case, places the responsibility for this hate crime — and other acts of anti-Blackness on campus — on individual rogue “unknown students,” when in fact the responsibility for the campus climate and student culture ultimately lies with the institution itself.
Black students have repeatedly faced discrimination on campus, as their statements attest to; to this point there hasn’t been enough done to make sure these incidents don’t happen again. Biola has allowed a student culture to develop in which cultural competency is not required of all students, a culture which nurtures willful ignorance regarding race, gender and sexual orientation, and which allows students to remain largely unchallenged, and unchanged on these issues as they go through a liberal arts education there.
While events like SCORR (Student Congress on Racial Reconciliation) exist, they are not mandated by the college — for all students to attend — in the same way, say, as Missions and Torrey Conferences are mandated. If Biola’s community is to be characterized by Christ’s love in order to be a relevant and redemptive voice in a changing world, as they say, SCORR would already be required for all students; no excuses (e.g., fear of losing donors, fear of white student and parent retribution, etc.) would stand in the way as obstacles. In addition, Biola has failed to equip its students in mind and spirit because there are no required general education courses that address issues of race and racism in America and the role Christians must play in the fight — because, again, Biola’s commitment to diversity is, literally, only skin deep.
Biola may say, “We are making efforts,” but many current and past students have noted, and I agree, that their “efforts” have — for the past twenty years — made almost no difference.
Instead, then, Black students have attempted, on their own, to create spaces and hold events to educate their peers on issues of race. They should not have to play this role; education, in an institution of higher learning, is the job of the institution, not its students. Not only, though, have students acted as educators where their educators have remained silent, but students have met resistance from their own administration and advisors. Students, being told that their events — which confront issues like white privilege — shouldn’t occur on campus, because white students might become upset. In doing this, Biola has prioritized the comfort of the majority white students over the lived painful experiences of their Black and Brown ones.
Biola’s student newspaper has, for days after the hate crime was made public, willfully ignored statements from their students of color; in fact, as of the release of this article, a week after the event, they have yet to release any story on the matter — opting instead to write numerous articles on a recent talent show.
This is unacceptable.
Within the past week, as I have met with and talked with Black students on campus at Biola, they tell me they are hurt by this incident, but they also tell me they are not surprised. For many Black students, this is just another racially motivated incident in a long line of racially motivated incidents during their time at Biola. The appearance of a swastika, they say, is more of the same: the perpetuation of willful ignorance among the general student body.
When it comes to issues of race, my alma mater is the kind of school where Black students should not be surprised to find themselves victims of racist attitudes and behaviors — and the university has for the most part kept silent. Where is the press conference with Dr. Corey? Where is the statement acknowledging the institution’s complicity in creating a culture that would allow for an incident like this to occur? They are nowhere to be seen. Instead, we have statements that serve to relieve the pressure that could be placed on them by the public, instead of addressing the issues that lead to this event in the first place. [Update: As of 5:32pm on April 25th, Dr. Corey has released a statement, via email, to the student body calling for corporate prayer and fasting in response to the hate crime].
The swastika, then, is not the problem. The problem is that Biola has not accepted its actual social reality. They would prefer, instead, to deny the racism active in their midst. They have not accepted their institutional negligence. They have not mandated cultural competency. What is needed is not just reconciliation; first there must be truth. As an institution it must confess to consciously and unconsciously fostering racism, privilege, bigotry. Biola must confess their lack of action to rid the campus of these issues, supporting ignorance. Biola, then, must tell the truth about itself, to itself, so that it can move forward into hard work of true campus-wide liberation.
If in service of the maintaining the status quo the administration continues to ignore the voices of the marginalized on campus, then we will be able to say with certainty that next time the PR rep gives us a statement about Biola’s commitment to diversity on campus, that statement is spoken to deflect our attention from the real problem, a problem that exists within the hallways of Metzger, the university’s prestigious board, within the values and priorities of the institution itself.
[For more on why this conversation matters, please read Carlos Antonio Delgado’s essay entitled, “Racism Has Again Become Something to Diminish, Rationalize, & Deny at a Christian University”]
Justin Campbell is a college English professor and freelance writer living in Los Angeles. He is the winner of the 2013 Hurston/Wright Award for African-American Writers. He is the co-creator of an original podcast on the intersections of race, gender, sexual orientation and class with spirituality/religion entitled “embodied. a podcast”. Justin is also a contributing writer with the Los Angeles Review of Books and his work has been published in The Millions and The African American Review.
