Overwhelmingly white female audience
WASHINGTON, DC – American University has dealt with bananas hung from nooses, posters urging women to âmake me a sandwichâ and contrarian feminists in the past several months.
In an effort to make sure that its students, staff and faculty can respond to such challenges to inclusivity, the private institutionâs Center for Diversity & Inclusion hosts occasional voluntary workshops.
I attended one Wednesday titled âCreating Inclusive Communities.â From defining âallyshipâ to âmicroaggressionâ to âintersectionality,â this event could have taken place at nearly any campus nationwide.
Led by Shannon Smith, the centerâs assistant director for student success, and the business schoolâs director student development, Andrew Toczydlowski, this interactive class opened with participants identifying ourselves and our preferred pronouns, both of which were written on our nametags.
Eight of the 10 participants were women, all but one was white and all identified with their birth sex.
‘Understand your privilege’ to ‘increase your allyship’
The discussion took place at several tables in a glass-enclosed room in the student center. I sat with three others, including two self-identified professors. Perhaps surprisingly, no one specifically discussed the campus racial and gender controversies of 2017.
The themes of the workshop appeared to contradict each other: Participants were told in one breath not to âstereotype,â and in the next they were assigned various forms of âprivilegeâ based on stereotypical traits.
The facilitators, both self-identified men, gave us a worksheet that advised us to âunderstand your privilegeâ as a way to âincrease your allyship.â
American University “Allyship” worksheet from “Creating Inclusive Communities” training by The College Fix on Scribd
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But Smith said we must have an understanding of our identities before engaging with others, and that we should be careful of stereotyping.
âYour identities are not separate,â Smith said, explaining intersectionality. âYou may be a student, you may be a parent, you may be a part of this religion, and you may be of this socioeconomic status. Those do not exist independently of each other.â
For example, Smith said, âIâm a black assistant director from the South that has an education degree beyond college. So, at no point am I truly able to just enter a space and say âIâm solely only a black male.ââ
Everyone sees the world through an intersectional lens even if they donât realize it, according to Smith: âYouâre looking through that lens from this situation based upon possibly my gender, my background, where Iâm from, my education level. This is putting this all into perspective.â
Toczydlowski echoed Smithâs sentiment. âThe identity I think about most here in DC is the fact that Iâm white,â he said. (The cityâs population dipped below majority-black in 2011 for the first time in five decades.)
âThe identity that Iâm always thinking about back home in rural upstate New York is the fact that I am not religious,â Smith continued: âDepending on the context of what identity youâre thinking about the most is that it might change.â
The participants answered written questions including âWhich identity or identities do you think about the most? Why? How?â and âWhen has someone stereotyped you or made assumptions about you based on one of your identities? How did it make you feel?â
Each table then discussed among themselves how they identify. (Participants did not give their surnames.)
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âThe first things that came to mind were gender, race, and sexual orientation,â professor Mary said at my table:
I probably think about race now more now than ever before given the rising incidents of overt racism in our country. So thatâs made me in past couple of years think more about using my privilege for some kind of social justice. … In my identity, I think about my educational attainment and my profession. That makes me who I am.
The discussion transitioned to conceptually discussing inclusion, whether it be social, economic, educational, or any category that can serve as a kind of barrier.
Maria talked about the barriers she has felt as a student, particularly ânot being able to access certain opportunities because of financial limitations here at AU or at least feeling pressured [that] you have to do exactly that.â
She said she feels pressured to get an internship: â[N]ot everyone can access an internship thatâs unpaid – like, most of them are unpaid.â
As a group, only whites can be racist?
The workshop included an introductory discussion of microaggressions, though participants already seemed familiar with the concepts and accepted them uncritically.
An example is asking people who donât look American where they are from. âOh, Iâm from Detroit,â Smith said hypothetically. âBut then thereâs, âYeah, yeah, where you really from?ââ:
Thereâs a message there because, one, what do we mean by that? Two, what does that mean to that person because are you âotheringâ that person, to an extent, to make the other person say âI am from Detroit, but I was born and raised in Detroitâ? What does that mean to them?
He concluded, âWhat does that comment mean? Does that mean you are different from me?â
American University “Creating Inclusive Communities” packet by The College Fix on Scribd
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When I asked Toczydlowski to differentiate between overreacting and feeling legitimately âmicroaggressedâ in response to a situation, he responded that âcontext is important.â
He gave an example of someone meeting an African American and saying first, âWow, you are so well spoken!â
âThatâs not appropriate,â he explained. âBut if Iâm in the context of my job and a student has just auditioned to be the commencement speaker, and I say, âWow, youâre really well spoken,â thereâs a difference there.â
When the tables gathered together again, the participants were asked what they plan to do to be inclusive.
The only nonwhite participant said she feels that just as she âhold[s] white people accountable for racism ⌠I feel like I have to also be committed to holding myself accountable for colorism in the black community as well as other people of color.â (Colorism is the practice of âprejudice or discriminationâ within an ethnic group against those whose skin is darker.)
The female student did not say she held black people as a group accountable for racism, however.
That seemed to be the underlying theme of Wednesdayâs discussion: All individuals can show racism, but only whites are responsible for institutional racism.
Members of the university community who missed Wednesdayâs discussion can attend several related workshops this academic year. They include âSafe Space: Understanding LGBTQ Identities,â âTrans 101,â âUnmasking Your Privilegeâ and âPaving the Way: Supporting First-Generation College Students.â
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IMAGE: Syda Productions/Shutterstock
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