Some students, faculty, and administrators believe that
black people are subject to disproportionate suspicion, monitoring, and
punishment—not only in America generally, where the fact is well-known,
but also in the heart of educated, progressive Harvard. Although the
feeling is by no means new, the Harvard campus has been reluctant or
even unwilling to address this issue, even when events like last month’s
“Quad incident” remind many of how far Harvard has to go.
On
May 12, with the full authorization of the three House “masters” in the
Quad, the Harvard Black Men’s Forum (BMF) and the Association of Black
Harvard Women (ABHW) sponsored an early-afternoon picnic and field day
on the Quad lawn. Simultaneously, a number of their non-black fellow
students exchanged e-mails expressing annoyance about the students
allegedly damaging the lawn and doubt that they were Harvard students
with a right to be there in the first place. Then, one of the
complainants called the police. That a student gathering of a similar
nature, but comprised mainly of white students, had inspired no calls to
or intervention by the police suggested, to black students and faculty,
a familiar pattern.
It is statistically documented that police
stop black and Latino drivers more often than white ones, that blacks
receive longer sentences than whites for the same crimes, that black
applicants for home and auto loans receive higher interest rates than
whites with the same financial credentials, that white basketball
referees are more likely to call a foul on a black player than a white
player, and that their bias exceeds that of black referees.
Yet
many will deny that racial bias occurs in progressive communities like
Harvard or that it could happen when the perpetrators consider
themselves modern and educated beyond the brutality often implied by
charges of “racism” and “racial profiling.” Moreover, some Harvard
students fear that the charge, when permanently documented in reply to
their suspicious e-mails about the black picnickers, could damage their
professional and political futures.
I empathize with the
shoemaker’s concern about his reputation, but the carelessly-made shoe
still hurts. One night in 1980, just a few years after the busing
crisis, I was a college student walking through Harvard Square. Two
white boys coming from the opposite direction parted ways, and one of
them punched me in the stomach. Completely winded, I could not even
shout for help.
Around 1990, a black law professor at Harvard
was falsely accused of shoplifting and thrown up against a counter at
Bloomingdale’s. Bloomingdale’s paid him $5,000 in apology. In 1998, an
incoming House “master” dismissed a tenured black faculty member whom he
had never met from the House Senior Common Room, based upon
insinuations of untidiness and petty theft made by a secretary who had
behaved similarly toward three generations of black tutors in that
House. The secretary and the new House “master” who had acted on her
word were required to write apologies.
Two years ago, a
high-ranking black dean at Harvard was stopped by the campus police
because he allegedly “fit the description” of a perpetrator. For white
Americans, who are most accustomed to distinguishing males from each
other according to their height, hair color, and eye color, many black
males look alike. The dean’s student work-study assistants were
reportedly called upon by the police to vouch for the dean’s legitimacy.
No more in this case than in the others does the subsequent apology
erase the humiliation of a victim whose mountain of accomplishment is so
swiftly reduced to rubble, based on the unreflective impulse, willful
ignorance, or hallucinations of an underdeveloped white person.
To
the Cabot House students who e-mailed their suspicions to each other,
60 black Crimson editors, Institute of Politics members, Hoopes Prize
winners, and Harvard insignia-wearing dormmates playing hula-hoop and
capture-the-flag looked like an invasion of gang-bangers. One black male
professor also reported that he has been asked for identification so
often that he would hardly have thought to mention it, though it does
make him feel that he does not belong. He summarizes the attitude of
many whites as follows: “When you are an unfamiliar black man, you are
by definition a threatening black man.” Thus, to some Harvard students, a
black male student simply does not look like a hallmate, and a crowd of
black students bears no resemblance to other Harvard-loving kids
celebrating the completion of a semester’s hard work and saying goodbye
for the summer.
Thus, after May 12, BMF and ABHW noted that the
police had not been called on the noisy and largely white crowd that,
without official permission, had convened “Quad Day”—a similar event on
the same lawn during reading period. Some non-black students have
argued, counterfactually, that the police were called simply because BMF
and ABHW were making excessive noise during reading period. In fact,
according to Harvard University Police Chief Francis Riley, the initial
telephone complaint specifically identified the picnickers as
non-Harvard affiliates, and that was the original official reason for
the police dispatch. By the time the police were called, BMF had been
asked to lower the noise and had done so by turning off the music and
the bull horn.
Like the black students’ gathering, Quad Day made
noise during reading period. Unlike the later gathering of black
students, however, the white students at Quad Day had done so on a
weekday, had reportedly engaged in illegal public drinking, and had
muddied a significant portion of the lawn while playing
“slip-and-slide.” In a dramatic indication of the double standard at
play, Quad Day and the damage to the lawn were reportedly photographed
and celebrated on a Facebook profile of the very student who later
initiated the email complaints about the BMF and ABHA gathering.
With
good reason, black faculty, staff, and students wonder whether our
efforts to meet the highest standards and our human flaws will receive
the same benefit of the doubt as do white people’s equally successful or
equally flawed efforts. Indeed, no matter what we wear or how we act,
others’ misrecognition remains, for us, a threat not only to comfort but
also to life and limb.
Some part of the solution to these
worries is obvious. Harvard University needs more black faculty,
administrators, police officers, security guards, staff, and students,
so that the 13 percent of the American universe that is black can become
less of a supercharged symbol in other people’s inflated
self-estimations and more a range of human beings with diverse talents
and ways of making the world a better place. The other concrete need is
for the entire University community to recognize that the world is not
color-blind, and that a careful, self-conscious, and hyper-cautious
level of procedural circumspection is sometimes necessary in order to
guarantee fairness to those who “fit the description.” However,
institutional action is but a potential catalyst to the social change
that is really needed. On a diverse campus and in the prime of their
intellectual and social lives, students of all colors, religions,
genders, and sexual orientations need to take the time to look into the
faces of the other, greet someone who was once a stranger, listen with
empathy to her story, and daily seek fairness for all.
J.
Lorand Matory ’82 is a professor of social anthropology and African and
African-American studies.