Open Letter: To be Black at My University
Loyola: How will you use your minute?
Dear Fr. Linnane, Cabinet, and Board of Trustees,
I am one of your students, a first-generation college student who is a rising Sophomore and a Sociology major. My first year at Loyola I started a club called “Addressing the system,” and I joined many other clubs. I worked at the radio station and had my own podcast discussing homelessness in Baltimore city (Both Feet In). I also had a paid internship with the Elijah Cummings Youth Program in addition to working weekends at Belvedere Square. I ended my first year with making Dean’s list.
My ancestors were slaves and then sharecroppers in Heathsville, Virgina. They migrated north, to Turner Station, MD, where my great grandfather was a steel mill worker. My father did not graduate middle school. My mother is a CNA certified nursing assistant. I was born and raised in Baltimore City by a Black single mother; my entire life we have been just above the poverty line. As a child, I witnessed drug abuse and gun violence in my family and in my neighborhood. I have two younger brothers on my mother’s side. In 2015 their father was murdered and though he was not my father he was one of my role models. My paternal grandmother was a drug addict who eventually was able to get clean, but her daughter, my aunt, died of a drug overdose in a vacant house years later.
When I look at my family’s history in America, I think of growth and our role within society. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had, including moments such as being able to travel to Israel for a month to build connections between the Jewish and Black community. I have had the pleasure of meeting former presidents Obama and Clinton and being mentored by the late congressman Cummings. Our amount of growth is great from where we came from — slavery — and yet, it is still very much marginal. My family does not have true power or true legacy; we do not own property and we do not have wealth. My family is not alone. This is the sad narrative and true history for a majority of African Americans due to the structural racism and inequalities that are institutionalized throughout our society. The inequities that perpetuate white privilege and benefit white people at the same time disenfranchise African Americans generation after generation.
I write today from the lens of a young Black man in America. I write today from the lens of a young Black man at Loyola University Maryland. To be Black in America means for Black stories, Black experiences, and Black history to be invalidated. Being Black is
shrinking to a smaller version of yourself so you don’t get labeled as the “angry, loud, Black person.” Being Black is being watched in a store while simply minding your own business. Being Black is not being listened to by doctors. Being Black is working twice as hard to get half of what white people get.
Last semester at Loyola, I took a class where I learned about redlining, and I think redlining is an apt metaphor for what is going on at Loyola. Redlining is “The ordinance that made it illegal for any black person to live in a white neighborhood, and vice-versa, codifying the existing racially segregated residential patterns in the city into law” (Bloomberg). Throughout Baltimore you can see the impact of redlining even though it’s been outlawed for over 50 years. You can see the differences in poverty, wealth, food deserts, and simply just the state and environment of the community. Yet the divide is not just visible, it’s also physical: the life expectancy of an African American is 69 and the life expectancy of a white person is 85.
Loyola is located in the middle of Baltimore City right off of Charles Street. The campus stretches from Roland Park to Govans/York Road. Like the rest of Baltimore, this area is evidence of redlining — racially divided and segregated socially and economically. Roland Park is one of the wealthiest, whitest neighborhoods in Baltimore City. The Govans/York Road area is a majority Black community with food deserts, dilapidated schools, and large clusters of poverty. And redlining extends into Loyola, at the intersection of these two vastly different worlds. “Redlining” at Loyola is not just the separation of the buildings on campus and the communities it borders. At Loyola, the redlining bleeds into the general spaces, the dorms, the classrooms, and employment disparities.
There are not many places on campus that truly feel welcoming to me and where I see other individuals who look like me. Loyola designates the Center for Intercultural Engagement (CIE) as the sanctioned place for students of color. This is where most cultural/ethnic events are held and considered a Mecca for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students. The deeper issue is that students of color are wanted on campus to count for diversity and inclusion, but their culture is not implemented throughout the campus.
Alternatively, the space for white students is really the whole campus. Loyola’s campus exudes and highlights white culture and expects assimilation from students of color. You can really see it and feel it at Starbucks in the middle of campus. When I walk through this part of the campus it is mostly occupied by white students. The Starbucks employees are all Black; the majority of them are female and have some age on them. I have been told from the Starbucks staff that they encounter entitlement, rude remarks,
and overall ignorance from some white students. I have also witnessed this. A white friend and I were in the Starbucks line, talking about COVID-19, and I brought up how I felt bad for the staff because they would be out of work. My friend responded with “they choose these jobs” and “they should know what they are getting themselves into.” Then he continued to argue that their unemployment wages were sufficient and a livable wage. He did not take into account their families, living situations, and most of all that unemployment is just half of what you normally make. Again and again, I hear white students make comments that show that they don’t understand the deeper issue of economic disparities which run along racial lines.
The redlining of common spaces extends into the dorms. As a first-year student, I was assigned to a suite with three white men. One of my roommates had posted pictures of a confederate flag to his Instagram account of him standing in front of the flag. The RA’s response: “Would you want to switch rooms?” suggesting that I may want to be in a room with other Black people. The white student laughed it off, saying it was no big deal. I experienced it as a big deal, as an act of racist aggression during my first week on campus. The RA’s suggestion did nothing to address the racism of the confederate flag, and as the Black student I was asked to accommodate the white student. Furthermore, if I agreed to the RA’s offer to room with only Black men, this would covertly promote segregation of groups on campus.
I heard similar “redlining” segregation messaging in Messina too. Because one of the objectives of Loyola’s Messina program is to connect first year students to Baltimore, Evergreens give an introduction to Baltimore during the orientation weekend. My Evergreen gave the run-down on where to go in Baltimore: places like the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Federal Hill, and Hampden. The “places to stay clear of” were parts of York Road, certain areas downtown, and overall, just “sketchy parts’’ across the city. My Evergreen had good intentions — ”to keep students safe.” However, when you basically tell students to stay clear of Black communities in Baltimore that are historically disadvantaged, you also tell them that the problem is with people who look like me. My family resides in those areas. I call East Baltimore home.
Now, I also call Loyola home, but my experience here is vastly different. In the classroom, I am a minority, and am not as eager to speak up in front of others because I am often the only Black man. Also, I don’t see myself reflected in my professors or my heritage honored in the classes. This upcoming fall I was registered to take an African American history class. I received an email a few weeks ago telling me that the class was canceled because the professor had retired. The email also outlined that another professor could not teach the class because they were not qualified. I discovered that
the professor who retired was a Black male. I was surprised that white professors who teach American history would not feel equipped to teach a class on African American history. Moreover, the deeper issue is the visible lack of Black professors at Loyola. There are 362 full time faculty; out of that 362, 268 are white faculty and only 13 are tenure track or tenured Black faculty. When curricula, classes, and policies are being made, think about who sits at the table.
For me, racial inequity at Loyola was particularly highlighted when I got to know a Black dining employee over many conversations my first year. She explained to me how she has worked at Loyola for over 45 years and how her kids have now begun to work there also. She was extremely proud that her kids would be working with her and how long she’s been at Loyola. I learned that she was not a college graduate and the same for her kids. She was so proud and overjoyed to tell me that story. She was born and raised in Baltimore, in “Down Dah Hill” or DDH, which is the Black part of downtown Baltimore (the area my Evergreen told students they should not go to). The area has food deserts and many pockets of poverty, crime, and drugs. This is also an area that has experienced redlining. Her loyalty to Loyola is incredible. But again, this is very much marginal change; her family will be in the same socioeconomic status generation after generation. Compare this story to a professor, for instance, who works for 45 years for a school. He or she will benefit from promotions, raises, 401k matches.
Black people are in a state of survival in America. COVID-19 has highlighted disparities in the Black community like no other. As we work to address the large, societal issues of racism, we also need to be aware of the racism in our own communities. Renaming Flannery O’Connor to Sister Thea Bowman is a small and yet an important gesture. Thank you. I hope you continue to listen to students, faculty, and staff as we name the issues that are present on campus and suggest solutions that will be impactful. To that end, I offer a few suggestions from the perspective of a marginalized voice for how Loyola might continue to move forward on addressing the systemic issues that are woven through our campus.
● Center Black voices by hiring more Black staff and faculty in positions of power. When the faculty and staff is diverse, then you do not rely on single people for their labor or their perspective.
● Create mechanisms and structure to make it safe to call out racism.
● Create actual consequences for racist speech and action.
● Resist the white savior role. For example, Loyola must stop asking students to “look at poverty” in communities as though it is a show. Loyola must rely on Black people in the communities that they purport to serve for guidance on
Loyola’s role in those communities. This involves asking questions instead of proposing solutions on things you may not know about.
Loyola has a choice. You can decide to listen to my voice and the many other groups on campus. You can make meaningful changes on campus. If you do so, you will be sending students out of Loyola to be a part of the solution, not the problem. These students will be the next doctors, teachers, policy makers, and their decisions will have an impact on society. All students need to leave Loyola with an understanding of structural racial inequities and how racial privilege impacts society. If they don’t, you have failed them tremendously. I’ll end with a poem that the late Congressman Cummings would often say.
“I have only just a minute, Only sixty seconds in it. Forced upon me, can’t refuse it. Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it. But it’s up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it. Give account if I abuse it. Just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it”.
Loyola: How will you use your minute?
Sincerely yours, Savoy Adams, Class of 2023
