Want to truly fight racism? It’s time to look inward.
“Well, you know what, you got to think of it like this — think of racism like hot sauce. You know, there’s some hot sauce where they tell you it’s hot sauce, but you can’t really tell. You know, you put it on your tongue, it doesn’t happen, but then maybe tomorrow when you go to the bathroom you’ll be like ‘Oh, that was hot sauce.’ I don’t like that. I want to know when it’s happening, that this is hot sauce.”
- Trevor Noah, explaining his preference for South African racism over American racism on “Hot Ones”
I grew up in the South, raised in Texas and North Carolina. Two states with particular personalities, a strong dichotomy between the conservative and the liberal, and a style of barbecue they each seem to think is the best (it’s Texas, if you’re wondering who the real winner is here).
Like most Black people in America, my first experiences with racism started young. In elementary school, I was teased for my ‘‘nappy’’ hair and giant braided pigtails. From there, many of the racist encounters I had felt obvious and expected. I was followed by stern-looking, older white sales associates in department stores while looking for a prom dress. I was corralled into coned off areas in front of the theatre with other Black youth while waiting to be picked up after a late-night movie for ‘‘crowd control”. I was thrown racist slurs, underestimated, and undermined.
Even microaggressions felt straightforward and predictable. Comments about how articulate I was, how smart I was, in ways that clearly indicated disbelief that a Black girl could present such well-conceived thoughts. This did not deviate in DC, where I spent five years working in finance post-college. I’ll never forget when a coworker reached over to run her hands down my crochet braids during a midday meeting, fascinated by my new hairstyle. Or, when an older white colleague sent me an email with a link to a Black empowerment tee to remind me “My Black skin is beautiful’’, as if I hadn’t been waking up every day of my adult life self-reinforcing this very fact in a world designed to tear me down.
I had been conditioned over the years to recognize, react, and reflect on every racist moment with the kind of poise and resilience that only an African-American woman could. It was painful, sometimes traumatic. Yet, I rose from every instance with a renewed sense of self. As Nina Simone sang, ‘‘When you’re young, gifted, and Black — your soul’s intact.’’ I knew my worth. I emanated strength and I shared that with the people around me — by leading DEI committees with peers in the industry, participating in company recruiting initiatives, and building a career development program for high school students of color.
But when I arrived at Stanford, something changed.
I thought I had amply prepared for the new journey I was embarking on. I had made the decision to attend Stanford after careful deliberation with friends, family, and coworkers. Through numerous conversations, we carefully evaluated the financial commitment, the time investment, but most importantly, the size of the Black community. I had accepted my offer to attend despite the fact that only 3% of Stanford’s graduate population and 2% of Palo Alto was Black. I was confident in my ability to thrive regardless. I had gone to a majority-white college and succeeded in an industry dominated by older white men. In my mind, I had all the training I needed to navigate Stanford.
My new peers and I were all meeting for the first time and communicating with each other under the perceived warmth that newness provided. It meant that I had unconsciously lowered my guard. After all, these new faces would be more than my classmates — I was uncovering an untapped treasure trove of new friends to spend the next two years with, wasn’t I?
So, I couldn’t help but be a little surprised when a classmate asked to touch my hair in one of my first interactions with our class. I quickly composed myself, opened up dialogue, explained the problem and moved on as I usually did. For weeks after, the microaggressions came in a deluge. My name was butchered, my thoughts passed over, and my person confused with any other brown female in the vicinity.
In one instance, an Asian classmate walked up to me in the corridor after class to hand back a sweater that she had borrowed from an African girl days prior. Not only had she not remembered the face of the Black woman who had helped her out, she couldn’t tell us apart. When I pointed out the blunder, she pretended she had made no mistake at all and chose to hastily walk away. This type of encounter wasn’t new. But, I had previously interacted with people who were either (I) outright racist, and made no move to hide it or (II) expressively apologetic and clearly knew the limits of their wokeness. This girl was neither, instead maintaining a facade that indicated she believed the action was free of racial bias. It was unsettling, but it was a common response at the GSB, I soon discovered.
One of the greatest enemies of progress is fear, and I find members of the Stanford GSB community are more willing to look externally than internally — more willing to fight the errors of society than reflect on the very things they do that maintain the status quo inside the Stanford community.
My moving past the incident wasn’t as clean as I had imagined. Later in Fall Quarter, I sat in a classroom of peers deep in group discussion. Motivated to contribute, I raised my hand and presented an idea that was ignored. No big deal, I thought, until a white female classmate presented the exact same idea minutes later to a warm reception. I looked around the room in shock, thinking someone would recognize what had occurred, but I was alone. When I brought it up to another classmate in the room afterwards, I was told I was being overly sensitive.
The next day, I woke up with gastrointestinal problems. I curled up in a fetal position in bed and hugged my stomach in pain while a deep exhaustion and inexplicable sadness washed over me. It was only then that I came face-to-face with my body’s breaking point. I had been ingesting microaggression after microaggression fearlessly in the moment without realizing their delayed effects. It was that day after hot sauce kind of racism, and being in Palo Alto, surrounded by a community blind to its own ignorance of the struggles of its Black members, was like eating with no water or milk for reprieve. After experiencing gaslighting for weeks, those intangible moments had manifested into an illness that was all too real.
Microaggressions are defined by Harvard psychiatrists as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color”. They are the thousand little cuts that can damage the psyche, resulting in depression, anger, hyper-vigilance, fatigue, or even physical conditions like chronic infections and high blood pressure.
At Stanford, I’ve seen in my daily interactions the kind of microaggressions that are common among educated liberals. Instances such as:
- Misspelling my name in an email because you couldn’t be bothered to check the ‘‘To’’ box.
- Mispronouncing my name because you couldn’t care enough to ask first.
- Bypassing me in line because I’m invisible to you.
- Not calling on me in class because you subconsciously devalue my opinion.
- Being surprised by my knowledge, or my experiences because you “didn’t think Black people did that sort of thing.”
- Mixing me up with other Black students.
These instances, when met with confusion and denial, often lead to gaslighting. Responses like those below:
- “Well, what did you do that might have caused it?”
- “You’re the only one who saw it, so I’m not sure it really happened.”
- “But that wasn’t what he/she/I meant, you’re interpreting it wrong.”
- “Are you sure that was racially fueled? I think you’re blowing it out of proportion.”
I’ve heard many explanations for the mistakes made, all of which diminish my lived experience as a Black person. Microaggressions are not just occurrences in which an apology will absolve the situation of its negative impact. They are small assaults — cuts — on the psyche, and they have real implications that must be acknowledged.
In the movement for racial equality, many of my classmates are looking to enact large and sweeping changes on topics like policy change, funding, and resource allocation. They’re motivated to help elected officials and thought leaders understand why we need real change to upend inequitable systems. This is essential and necessary, but equally important is the unwavering commitment to understanding and learning from the unintentional behaviors that uphold our unequal system and undermine Black people. One of the greatest enemies of progress is fear, and I find members of the Stanford GSB community are more willing to look externally than internally — more willing to fight the errors of society than reflect on the very things they do that maintain the status quo inside the Stanford community.
I implore the GSB community to think of racial equality not just as an international movement, but as a daily exercise that should be practiced in every interaction, on campus and off. Sometimes you fail, but face that failure head-on with respect for who you have impacted and you’ll learn to abandon fear in favor of enlightenment. We have the choice, every day, to build a Stanford community which lives its values and makes them a reality for everyone. But before addressing the inequalities of the world around us, let’s first reflect inward.
