No racist comment deserves tolerance
In the spring of 2019 — about a year before a video of George Floyd’s final nine minutes would spark a nationwide reckoning with racism — more than 60 black J.D. candidates stood proudly on the steps of the Harvard law library.
As one of the largest classes of black students in Harvard Law School’s history, the students, members of the Class of 2021, donned black clothing and gathered for a celebratory photo. Photos were taken of the men and women, along with a photo of the entire group. The purpose of the photoshoot, students said, was both to celebrate their own accomplishments and to demonstrate to black youth that they too could land at an institution like Harvard.
“Often times in our communities, places like Harvard or Yale or Stanford seem like abstract or theoretical places,” said Sabri Siraj, a black member of the HLS Class of 2021. “It did for me honestly. We just wanted to show people that hey, people like you can make it to these places. You can be successful, and we’re here for you.”
Yet when the photo of 25 black HLS male students resurfaced on a public LinkedIn post this week, it served not as a celebration of black power, but as a startling reminder that derogatory commentary exists everywhere.
On Monday, a white man who has no discernable connection to any of the students in the photo, wrote on his public LinkedIn page “Looks like gang members to me” along with the photograph.
The post was quickly shared among the black men in the photo, who were confused and disappointed to see their efforts to celebrate their accomplishment tarnished with what they called racist rhetoric.
“What’s shocking is that it’s on LinkedIn,” said Siraj. “This is a professional networking site where you don’t normally see commentary that’s not professional. It goes to show that racism exists in all parts of our society.”
In a request for comment, Smith — whose job title on LinkedIn is “Managing Director at Business Acquisition Company LLC” — responded by pointing out that he did not mention race in his post. He explained that if a group of non-black men wore the same expressions and clothing as he saw in the photograph, they too would look like gang members.
“I only spoke to their dress,” Smith said. “You cannot say they are not trying to portray a gang mentality … I would recommend withholding their diploma.”
Putting aside the absurdity of Smith’s response, the reality is that his initial post has been widely interpreted as racist by people from different genders, socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicities. Although Smith’s post has been removed from LinkedIn, screenshots have been shared widely over the past 24 hours, and comments indicate a mix of outrage and confusion over why Smith felt it was appropriate to call black law students gang members.
“There are plenty of photos of HLS students in casual wear on campus — why did you choose to comment on this one?” one comment from a white female reads. “I know exactly why, and frankly, it’s embarrassing you even try to defend this.”
This discussion on LinkedIn comes on the heels of nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died while in the custody of Minneapolis police on Memorial Day, pleading “I can’t breath” while an officer’s knee pressed down on his neck. Across the country, the Black Lives Matter movement is gaining traction as the country confronts overt racism within the criminal justice system.
Given the pressing racial issues facing our nation right now, it would be easy to disregard Smith’s comment as negligible. At the end of the day, the students in the photograph do attend one of the best law schools in the world, and a bigoted comment on LinkedIn is not going to stop those students from achieving success.
But when comments like these are tolerated or pushed under the rug, we are creating subconscious biases in our children. We are fueling the fire of white supremacists. And we are perpetuating harmful typecasts — in this case, that black men in a certain type of clothing and stance are violent or dangerous. These stereotypes sow the seeds of continued racial oppression.
As HLS student Shane Fowler put it, he felt compelled to call out Smith’s remark not because it presented a tangible hurdle to his and his classmates’ futures but because of the ripple effects those racist words have.
“We’re good,” said Fowler, one of the students who organized the photoshoot, “but I have family in rural Kentucky who can’t afford to be characterized or labeled as gang members for their livelihood… When we characterize black men like that, we are perpetuating harmful stereotypes.”
This particular story of an online racist attack especially resonates with me because I myself was in Harvard Law School’s Class of 2021. Those people Smith called gang members — they were my classmates. [I took a leave of absence from HLS during 1L and then decided to pursue journalism instead of law.]
I know about this story because it’s the individuals I sat next to in class who felt the attack. And yet this is just one story.
“Microaggressions” like the one my classmates experienced are all too common. Together, they are precisely what creates a country where, in 2020, it takes nationwide protests for a police department to hold its officers accountable for murdering an unarmed black man.
As best-selling author and African-American lawyer Bryan Stevenson said in a recent interview with the New Yorker, the protests on our streets today are not only about George Floyd. They are about the daily struggles of navigating life in America while black.
“I’m sixty years old and have been practicing law for thirty-five years,” Bryan told The New Yorker. “I have a lot of honorary degrees and went to Harvard. And I still go places where I am presumed dangerous. I have been told to leave courtrooms because the presumption was that I was the defendant and not the lawyer. I have been pulled out of my car by police who pointed a gun on me. And I can just tell you that, when you have to navigate this presumption of guilt, day in and day out, and when the burden is on you to make the people around you see you as fully human and equal, you get exhausted. You are tired. And I would argue that the black people in the streets are expressing their fatigue, their anger, and their frustration at having to live this menaced life in America.”
I don’t have the solutions to eliminate the racism that plagues our nation. But I do know that change starts when people speak out. I’m proud of my HLS classmates for refusing to accept prejudice, and I vow to never again tolerate one more racial slur or comment.
