Staff Editorial | Awareness of racial issues must outlast forum

For some, the noose on the sixth floor of Jewett House had been a troubling but unremarkable fixture of the sixth-floor lounge before recent controversy. But to many students, faculty and administrators previously unaware of its existence, the discovery of the noose was a disturbing parallel to recent national incidents of race-based tension and intolerance, historical symbols of white supremacy, and undermined the comfortable perception of Vassar as a place removed and immune from such intolerance.

The noose is one of the most recognizable symbols of racism and violence in the United States, with a history spanning from the Civil War to the current day. During the 19th and 20th centuries, white supremacists used the noose as a symbol and instrument of lynching of black people in mob-murders. Frequently used to intimidate African Americans, the symbol of the noose has long been reproduced by white supremacist groups to terrorize minority groups.

As expressed by the campus-wide e-mail sent out by President Catharine Bond Hill on Friday, Oct. 26, the incidents in Jena and at Columbia University, among others, have made the public primed “to the dangerously offensive associations with this particular image” and should cause us all to be mindful of “how our use of images and the meanings of our words, expressions, and actions can affect our individual and collective sense of community.”

Some people on campus have expressed surprise at the rapid response from the President’s Office in addressing the noose, as well as the forum held in Jewett House the weekend after Hill’s e-mail was sent. Hill has said that similar forums will be held periodically throughout the year.

Students who lived near the noose have described it as being understood as a window shade handle, while other members of the Vassar community have contended that regardless of intentions, the noose signifies hate and violence.

While the origin of the noose in Jewett may be ambiguous, its power to threaten people, especially people of color, is not. The circumstances of the noose’s creation and discovery cannot invalidate the reactions of students on campus for whom the noose harkens back to a racist practice of killing black people for sport and amusement.

By calling attention to existing (and forthcoming) spaces for dialogue about issues of intolerance on campus, the College has acknowledged that strong reactions of the past weeks are not attached to this specific object or incident, but rather to a constantly present undercurrent of tension in the campus community that is often not expressed. Many students and faculty left from the Jewett discussion dissatisfied with what they considered to be a shallow understanding of race at Vassar and in America. This dissatisfaction reinforces the need for continued dialogue and alludes to much unplumbed material that can be dealt with at future events.

It is unproductively naïve, however, to assume that a handful of dialogues with education about what a noose signifies will single-handedly alleviate racial tension and stereotypes on campus. Students, administrators and faculty who readily take on leadership roles in these difficult conversations will hopefully continue to urge their peers and colleagues to push the course of dialogue and to make these forums meaningful throughout the year. But when addressing issues of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic difference, these discussions are not ends in themselves.

For a community to be hospitable to difference, discussions like the one that took place in Jewett and those regularly held by offices such as Campus Life must be viewed as concentrated instances of a larger paradigm shift that moves beyond tolerance and convenient forgetting of unsavory moments in this country’s history.

The fact that a noose could remain on our campus for two years and not prompt a College-wide remark for close to four semesters indicates the marginalization of a consciousness of racial issues on campus. Organizing history into a dichotomy of antique racism versus modern tolerance ignores the fact that our actions and experiences are, consciously and unconsciously, racialized every day. Social psychological studies attest to what would be all-too-evident if we looked closer at our personal perceptions and behavior: We are all affected by and reproducers of a pervasive and unconscious racism. In order for discussions on diversity to be honest and productive, this latent racism must be acknowledged.

The emotional reactions of the last two weeks may not have been caused solely by the noose itself, nor were they necessarily fomented by racial tensions endemic to the campus. But any negative reaction to a symbol of racism and hate should always be respected. An incident like the discovery of the noose in Jewett is relevant to all of us because it forces us to examine the daily intersections of personal experience, public history and race.

The Staff Editoral represents at least two-thirds of the 14-member Editorial Board.