Stories (POSTS PAGE EX)

I am shocked and disgusted by the amount of white Davidson students posting on social media, showing them and their friends drinking, celebrating, sitting by pools and on boats, and generally acting as if there is nothing else going on that warrants their attention. By posting in such a way, they are essentially saying that their privilege not only allows that to remain completely unaffected by the urgent fight for racial justice but also to blithely ignore it. Not to mention that some of these same people have been and continue to ignore guidelines set up to prevent the spread of COVID-19 because their privilege also allows them to remain protected in the wake of the pandemic as well. Do better, Davidson students.

In the Fall 2019, two Jewish student leaders were contacted by Marketing and Communications with the vague request that they preview the new college commercial. This left them with the uncomfortable feeling that there were being asked to watch the commercial as Jews, and contacted some of the new JS faculty members to come. One faculty member (myself) and the rabbi joined the two students two weeks later for the screening. We weren’t told why we were there or why they wanted us to look at the commercial. After showing the commercial they asked what we saw in the commercial. Several of the viewers were reminded of Nazi propaganda imagery. At that point, the marketing dept. did their big reveal — the reason they had asked us to watch it was because it had reminded someone of the Schindler’s List red dress scenes. The Davidson College marketing dept had called on Jewish undergrads to preview a commercial to test whether or not they would visually be reminded of the Holocaust. In other words, they asked students to blindly go into an experience that might be traumatic to them as part of a focus group. The whole process was based on the assumption that young American Jews necessarily have an internalized visual repertoire of Schindler’s List symbols, even though the movie was made before most Davidson College students are born. It then became very clear that they never had any intention of changing the commercial, no matter what we said (it was airing in two days). They only reason they asked the students was to cover their asses in case someone got offended by the commercial. It was tokenizing, disingenuous, essentializing, and insensitive all at once.

I was hired to teach on a particular minority experience. Several seniors wrote theses squarely within my field of expertise. My colleagues who were teaching the senior colloquium apparently don’t think my expertise is necessary, because they never recommended any of these students consult with me or take my classes. I didn’t even know about these theses until the dept graduation ceremony.

My friend, [Asian woman], was walking up the hill from commons to the side of Belk when she heard a large group of guys who appeared to be wearing [sports team] attire. She recognized some of the guys who were on the [men’s sports] team. She was walking past them and she heard them giggling and cracking jokes as she approached them. As she walked by them, one man popped his head out of the crowd in front of [my friend] and said “Ni Hao!” in an aggressive and sarcastic manner. Some of these boys knew who she was and most likely knew where she was from. Either way they should not have made inappropriate and racially charged assumptions. We would appreciate it if [athletic staff] addressed this with your team, Coach. We would also appreciate some kind of closure/apology for this possibly intentionally and either way hurtful comment. We are all trying to improve the social climate at Davidson and make sure everyone feels welcome and comfortable. I know most Davidson students value this, and we decided to report this in effort to work towards making Davidson a safe place for all minorities.

After my personal issues became very public, I learned that those issues stemmed from untreated ADHD. My medication helps me feel happy, motivated, and in control of impulses. However, I’m afraid of what people will think of me and whether they think my friendship is even worth it because I’m medicated.

As a staff member, I was told I was racial profiling someone because I was explaining the rules of a project to them that they didn’t like. Where is the line between insubordination and microaggression?

It’s like I’m a Ghost.  I was working with two men and we were trying to figure out what time we had a shift change. We were sitting in a circle, all pretty evenly spaced out. I said that each shift should be 35 minutes, but it seemed like they didn’t hear me. I don’t have a quiet voice and I was sitting just a few feet away from them – they definitely should have heard me. The two of them kept trying to calculate how long the shifts should be and then they came up with the same answer I had just said. There was no difference between our positions, they were fellow students of mine, the only difference was that they are men and I am a woman. This reaffirmed my feeling that I don’t exist in the same space as men. I’m not heard or seen, I’m not respected like they are. I was as if I were invisible to them – that if I went up to them and knocked their water bottle off the table they would think it was a ghost because they can’t see me. 

I was talking to a friend of mine about a time where an upperclassman male student said he wanted to go a meeting where a lot of freshman girls would be so that he could scout out which ones he can hookup with. It was predatory and disgusting, it brought back feelings of times I had been vulnerable and preyed on by men. My friend said that “it’s not like most guys at Davidson are like that”. When my friend said this it felt like he was trying to erase every time that I’ve been made to feel violated and unsafe on campus because “it can’t be that bad, most men here aren’t like this”. What bothers me as well is at the time I just agreed with him, I thought he was probably right and that I was making a big deal out of nothing. He hasn’t lived my experiences and he probably genuinely thought that most men here aren’t like that. If I had validated my voice and told him that that isn’t actually the case, maybe I could have made his understating of the climate on campus more clear. Maybe he wouldn’t say things like that to other women who have felt the same way as me. But I also know that it can be difficult to speak up for yourself when you start to feel invalidated. 

In one of my classes, I was mistaken for the only other black woman in my class. This was done by a student when trying to reference a point I had brought up in the previous class discussion two days before. This point he was trying to reference was said in a twenty minute presentation I had given last class. This other black woman and I have two vastly different skin tones and were sporting two very different hairstyles. When I corrected him on who he was trying to quote, he waved it off and perhaps spared me two seconds of eye contact. I was annoyed the entirety of the class period and looking back, I wish I had stood up for myself a bit more. Your dismissal of knowing my name is simultaneously you participating in the erasure of black women in academia. 

During my visits to the Davidson Student Counseling Center, I have brought up my ex-girlfriend, who happens to be trans. Because I started dating her before she came out as a trans woman, all three of the counselors I have had have either asked what her deadname was, or referred to me as dating her “while she was a man/male.” All five of the six counselors I have seen in the past two years (not all at Davidson) have asked me about my ex-girlfriend’s deadname or used antiquated language when discussing the period of time when my ex-girlfriend was not out as trans. It has made me incredibly uncomfortable to feel pressured to say my ex-girlfriend’s deadname or to be forced to educate my counselor on the appropriate language to use in an extremely vulnerable space of a therapist appointment. I cannot imagine what an actual trans person must go through at the Davidson Counseling Center or with any other therapist who does not understand how to talk about gender dysphoria/dysmorphia and social/physical transitioning in a way that does not cause further trauma.