SBS 301 Cultural Diversity/Prof.
Koptiuch
Fall 2014 Personal Memory
Ethnographies
Lisa
Lacouette
Obscenely White
I was
nervous about being in Harlem because I thought it
was a “dirty and dangerous” place. I don’t believe
I would have gone there on my own if not for a
high school class field trip. New York City has
always been a melting pot’s melting pot. The
diversity of the United States is best represented
in this one city. But living not far from the city
in 1984 represented the opposite of diversity for
me.
I grew
up in upper middle class Long Island, New York. My
parents held moderately liberal viewpoints. I
visited New York City with them weekly for much of
my childhood and I remember questioning my parents
about the people I saw who “looked different” from
myself, but I accepted the fact that The City was
filled with all kinds of different people. My own
community was another story. There, daily life was
obscenely white.
I had
stereotypical expectations of a school in Harlem.
Now I was going there on a day trip with the
students from my social studies class. I would be
face-to-face with those kids. My class was
studying the different social, architectural, and
psychological aspects of Manhattan and once per
week we would travel together on the train into
The City to experience a different area or
attraction. We took the Long Island Railroad from
our affluent urban community into the heart of
Manhattan, then the subway to Harlem. Standing
outside the gray high school building on the
litter free upper eastside sidewalk, the surprises
were just beginning. The streets and buildings
were remarkably clean for an inner city
neighborhood. The high school was beautiful. The
huge brick building was just as modern, clean, and
well equipped as my own. My classmates and I were
each paired with a student and we were supposed to
follow them through their day’s class schedule. My
student partner Shonda, was wonderful, kind, and
welcoming.
“What
did I just see? I am walking through the hall to
social studies and I see these two white dudes.
What the fuck was that? I don’t remember anyone
saying anything about white kids coming to our
school. They looked pretty tight, nice clothes,
must be rich. They can’t live here. What
building did they move into? They didn’t look
like they’re related. That means two families.
Fuck man. What the hell is going on?”
What
struck me the most was the feeling of being so
different from everyone around me.Walking
through the halls and sitting in classes, I was
the complete focus. I was the alien, the
curiosity. For the first time in my life I was the
minority. Was this part of what it felt like to be
black in a white world?
“Now
I see a white girl in my social studies class.
She looks scared. The teacher said she is part
of a group from a high school in Long Island.
They’re here with a class that learns about The
City. I’m sure these white kids can learn plenty
about what it’s like to be us. One day don’t
make you black man, or poor. They don’t know.
They’ll never know.”
I
couldn’t help but be moved and compare my
experience (in a very small way) to the black
people who endured the racism in the 1950’s and
60’s. I wanted to understand how it felt to be
different based on the color of my skin but I was
also very afraid of how I would be treated.
“So
I talked to her. She’s not bad. She was pretty
excited to talk to me and my friends. She said
her social studies teacher is a pain in the ass
too. She’s cool I guess. I’m still not sure why
they came but I guess they’re ok.”
I had
built up some anxiety over my expectations of what
I was walking into on this trip to an all-black
high school. What surprised me was the kindness
and respect with which the sutdents treated us.
They did not look down upon me. They welcomed me.
The
students behaved exactly like those I left in my
own school. Laughing and chatting, the kids jammed
the stairways as they rushed to their next class.
If I had looked down at my feet and not at the
student’s faces I would have sworn the noisy
stairwells and crowded classrooms were mine. The
only distance I felt was my own. I had created an
expectation of separation between myself and these
students which did not exist. These kids were
welcoming even if the cold desk chairs weren’t.
“There’s
12 of them. Some boys, mostly girls. They were
sitting at a table with their teacher and some
of our kids in the cafeteria. They don’t look as
scared as they did a couple of hours ago. Man
they were shittin their pants then. They’re all
smiling and laughing now.”
Why
did I believe that Harlem was so different from my
own community? I’m sure it was the reason my
teacher brought the class to the Harlem high
school. He wanted to expand our current white,
teenage experience. I failed to appreciate the
impact of the racial conflicts that were occurring
within the decade surrounding this visit. Science
and literature were exploring racism. In the early
1980s genetic differences between the races were
being proposed. (These differences have since been
proven unfounded.) “The Bell Curve” was published,
widely read, and discussed as a basis for
scientific racism.
“I
guess we do have some stuff in common. I don’t
want to go to their school though. Maybe if we
could hang with these kids, since they’ve been
here, but if not, no way I’m going there.”
The
race riots that occurred during the 1990s would
have reinforced my fear of the black community if
not for my positive experience in Harlem. The LA
race riots in 1992, which were spurred by the
Rodney King beatings, were an unavoidable subject.
Television coverage of the damage, both material
and physical, was horrifying. The Crown Heights
riots in New York City the year before were less
publicized but even more so locally influential.
Both occurrences should have helped shine a light
on racial conflicts and the importance of peaceful
solutions, but the shooting of, a 23 year old
unarmed immigrant form Guinea, Amadou Diallo in
1999 in New York City by four police officers
still shocked the community. The shooting was
found to be unwarranted, but the officers were
exonerated of the charges. For white Americans,
events like these validated a climate of fear of
blacks.
Racism pervaded my existence and
yet I had no awareness of how it shaped my
obscenely white world. Perhaps that is why my
class trip to a Harlem high school has stayed with
me for so long and continues to influence my adult
life. It changed me. Since then I have aspired to
treat everyone with the same respect the Harlem
high school kids gave me because their actions
envisage the ideal of a more humane world.