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Last Updated: Jan 16th, 2009 - 10:49:36 |
Taped to the door of Brieanna’s dormitory suite was a sign that read “Ban the Whites” written in bold black letters on white computer paper. Underneath the door was a replica.
When she entered her room during the fall of 2007 at one of Howard University’s on-campus dorms, her suitemate showed her the two posters, said Brieanna, who chose to withhold her last name. That incident was the most blatant example of what she said is harassment for being bi-racial—with a Black parent and White parent—on a historically Black campus.
Brieanna filed a complaint with the director of her dorm, Kenyatta Hopkin, who then notified campus police shortly after the incident but nothing has turned up, she said.
During her first year at Howard University, Brieanna had to deal with ‘what are you,’ questions and derogatory names like ‘White girl’ and ‘snow bunny.’ It was last year however, when such comments evolved into discrimination and bigotry.
The evening of the Jena Six rally held on campus nearly a year ago, Brieanna logged onto Facebook.com, a Web site that enables people to connect with others.
She had received a new message in her honesty box which said, “I was wondering why you were at the Jena Six rally today … You’re White, you’re the enemy, you’re the reason we had the rally and I hope you die,” said Brieanna as she recalled reading the hateful message.
The honesty box function was created to allow site users to share their thoughts anonymously, so the identity of the person behind the message is unknown.
Brieanna added that she had received messages in her honesty box periodically over the previous summer but this one stood out.
“It kind of bothered me but I got over it,” said Brieanna.
Some said that racial tensions were boiling over especially with the Jena Six case heating up at the time.
“It is very important to think about the historical moment,” said Cynthia Winston, an assistant psychology professor at Howard. Winston is also a consulting psychologist for the Jena Six, the controversial case involving six Black teens who were charged with attempted murder after a series of racially induced fights. The incident began in Dec. 2006, when White teens hung nooses outside a school in Jena, Louisiana, sparking protests and accusations of injustice.
“There is that heightened division between Blacks and Whites and for the multiracial student it would be very difficult for some Black students to have sympathy,” said Winston.
Brieanna said she did not know much about the Jena Six at the time of the rally but felt that what was happening was wrong. She added that the case may have had something to do with the increased bigotry towards her but she believes that whoever sent the hateful messages already felt that way.
According to Howard campus police there has not been any hate crime reports made recently.
Brieanna feels as if her complaints of racism will go on unnoticed because she is biracial.
“A lot of people would not take it seriously or would dismiss it. Black people would say well that happened to us a million times and White people don’t really care and other mixed people don’t even go through the same thing,” she added.
But campus police said that “anything reported is taken seriously” and such reports should be filed through the school and the hate crimes unit.
“The student should also see what steps can be taken in the dorm so that actions can be taken against the individual,” added a police spokesman.
Rodney Terry, a Howard University psychology doctoral student, works with Winston in the Identity and Success Lab, a research center geared towards understanding the theory of race in the context of the individual and environment, especially among multiracial people. He said that forming a student awareness group would help “spread the word about the issue that Brieanna says no one really talks about.
He added that perhaps the lack of representation among multiracial students may be the reason Brieanna has not received a response from authorities yet.
After looking further into the issue, Brieanna realized that bigotry toward biracial persons is not as targeted as she’d thought.
Jericho Duroche, who is also a biracial student at Howard University, said that he receives bigoted comments on and off-campus, generally from black people. He hears comments such as “oh you’re the White boy” or while in class doing work, “oh that’s the White man.” Duroche has a beige complexion, wavy black hair, full lips and a rounded nose. To some, he looks Hispanic.
He identifies himself as a Black man and adds that he went to a predominantly Black school and had predominantly Black friends. Like Brieanna he was born to a White mother and a Black father but if you ask Brieanna to identify herself, she says she is both Black and White.
“I don’t disregard one or the other,” she said.
On the other hand, Ashley Lawrence, a senior at Howard University, who is half Italian and half black, views herself as being more African-American than Italian-American. Lawrence adds that she has never been harassed nor received racist comments for being biracial.
The varied experiences according to Winston have a lot to do with the way a person looks.
“I think that physical appearance is very important in triggering that behavior,” Winston said. “We do know that people make judgments on the basis of racial category.”, She added that “phenotype variation makes a difference.”
Brieanna is tan in complexion, exhibiting features similar to that of whites with a slender-pointy nose, dark-brown, fine, curly hair and thin lips.
“I would say that most mixed people look more Black than I do,” she said. “They face less ridicule from Black people but they would get flack from Whites.”
Chandra Prasad, author of Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience, said in an interview that society plays a huge role on the concept of identity in relation to race.
“We continue to be taught, both formally and subliminally, that people are Black or White, majority or minority, one thing or another,” Prasad said. “But the truth is, much of the population doesn't fit into convenient, simplistic categories. Increasingly, many of us live in between cultures, races, and communities.”
Prasad, who is of Indian and Caucasian descent, points out that “multiracial youth have the added challenge of coming from a complex cultural and racial background.” But their complexity allows them to “view the world in a broad, open-minded way, to resist stereotypes, and to show others that many boundaries are pointless.” She added that her feelings of separateness helped her to be independent and adapt to various environments.
In his book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, President Elect Barack Obama describes his struggle with racial identity. Obama, the son of a White American woman and a Kenyan man, raised in Hawaii, like Brieanna, identifies with the two worlds that helped to create him. Many argue that it is Obama's mixed identity that provided him with the understanding of all people, both Black and White.
“It also fueled me to become more aware of the issues that multiracial youth face, and to work on the Mixed anthology,” she said.
As a young girl growing up in West Virginia, Brieanna was well aware of her dual racial identity, which only fueled what she described as a thing against Whites who harassed her for being mixed.
“But I always felt like Black people didn’t do that. Black people weren’t racist but when I came here (to Howard University), I definitely realized that Black people do the same thing,” she said.
“When racism exists it does bad things to all people,” said Winston.
“Lots of African-Americans think African-American schools should be for African-Americans only and they might perceive a person who looks White as someone who is invading their territory,” said Terry.
Prasad has another approach. “I advocate more focus on the inside, less on the outside,” said Prasad.
Brieanna said that unlike those who identify themselves as either Black or White, some biracial people lack a firm identity that they can call their own and this lack of identity has, at times, left her feeling alone.
“It’s like you don’t fit in anywhere ‘cause mixed people don’t really have a certain place,” she said. “Black people can come to Howard and be with their people and White people can go to Harvard or wherever they want to go to be with White people but we can’t go any place where everybody is the same thing. It makes you feel like nobody’s really like you and you don’t know if anyone can really relate. But you get used to it.”
As for the hateful posters and online comments Brieanna said she would like to know who is behind them but she won’t push the issue any farther than she has.
© Copyright 2006 SeeingBlack.com
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