A series of racist Yik Yak posts angered some students on campus earlier this fall,. Known for its often controversial messages, Yik Yak is a site where members can post anonymously to people nearby.
“Under the cloak of anonymity, people will say things that they won’t say publically” said Margaret Bass, a recently retired professor of English. She indicated that for some, there was probably a specific intent to offend people on matters of race, but that for others, it may just be a way of sparking a reaction out of others. The anonymity of Yik Yak encourages people to say whatever they feel like.
“Yik Yak can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing” said Charnele Luster, a Residential Coordinator at SLU. “It creates a space where people feel they can say whatever they want.” With this freedom of expression, people can be themselves, good, bad, or indifferent, she argues. SLU is not the only campus, however, that is facing this challenge. According to Luster, SUNY Canton students have been posting similar or even worse posts than those generated by SLU students.
She added that out of all the campuses she has worked at, SLU is one of the most racially diverse. But she also mentioned that there’s a lot of different components to diversity. “racially yes, we’re diverse. Economically, we’re two different ends of the spectrum. I think that sometimes because of the differences within the economics, it creates different cultures for those two groups whether you’re white, black, hispanic whatever. That’s just how I see it.”
Despite the relative diversity on campus, many students including Nyima DeJesus ‘16, feel that “everyone views race as an issue that shouldn’t be talked about. Everyone avoids it because it’s a heated topic and that’s why the Yik Yak posts are so surprising because you don’t hear anyone talking about it.”
According to DeJesus, this lack of conversation is a problem. She feels that if race were talked about more on campus, students would not feel that it is okay to post remarks like those found above even under the cloak of anonymity.
Dr. Bass said that this lack of discussion is a trend that is not just relevant to SLU. “The climate in the nation is that, for the most part, people are pretty tired of having any discussion on race. I think there are people who earnestly believe that the problems has been solved and that black people want to portray themselves as victims.” Overall, she said that there’s a feeling of “we’re over that”, which she pointed out, is offensive.
As Luster points out, there are different ways to look at the racism that happens on campus. “Some people are truly ignorant, so all they know how to approach the situation is what they have seen on TV or the news. That’s one way to describe it. The other way, is that racism is still relevant today and happens today. It may not be as overt in the 50s and 60s but it still happens. Yikyak gives it a place to show that this still happens.”
The Yik Yak posts, however, are just the tip of the iceberg to what students like DeJesus see as a bigger issue. She says that it is not just in the online world that students of minority on campus face discrimination. She cited, for example, that “people on this campus feel very free to say the word ‘nigger’. I hear it all the time, everywhere I go.”
“People like to drop ‘I have a black friend’ in any context to show you that you’re not racist. I don’t care. how me through who you are.” She added that “people put all black people into one bucket. Assuming that people rap, or that I listen to rap, or that I like Beyonce or whatever people assume is black culture.”
DeJesus said that these assumptions also enter into the classroom. She explained that she’d had professors apologize to her after class discussions concerning race. “Even if I wasn’t offended. It just made me feel taken aback and confused. Why do you think that whatever comment that was made cut me inside? If you think that what you said was wrong it could have been to the whole classroom, not just me.”
According to DeJesus, there’s also an association on campus between minority groups and poverty. “I went to one professor and about internship and she immediately went to ones for minority groups. I just wanted an internship.” She said that she finds this kind of association offensive because “who said I’m poor?”
Sylvie Choiniere ‘16 says that she has never seen these instances of racism first-hand, but recognized that it probably happens all the time. Choiniere, a student from Malone, recognizes that there are many aspects of life that divide the SLU campus from where she grew up. “I mean, here we say it’s not diverse, but there it’s really not.”
“Malone has one of the biggest prisons. You’ll see buses come up from the city and people associate black people with bad connotations. There was a family that came to church and everyone was like ‘What? Why are they in a catholic church?’”
For Choiniere, however, these differences didn’t hold her back from wanting to meet people from different backgrounds once she got to SLU. She said that she was excited and curious to learn more about people who come to SLU from a wide variety of places.
DeJesus said, “I would rather have people interested and curious than shunning. That’s not offensive at all- it’s weird, but it’s tolerable. I think it’s more weird for me because I come from a city where I can be sitting on the same bench as 6 different races.”
Luster said that, “as college students, some people come equipped, but for some people, it’s a new interaction. If you grew up in the city, there are a lot of people who look like you. Diversity is a way of life there. For me, I came from a place where race is celebrated so when I see those comments, I can understand that they come from an ignorant and insensitive place, but it doesn’t make it ok.”
She went on to explain that she has worked in Tennessee and that part of the reason she moved was the underlying racism. She shared an example of how people were comfortable with having confederate flags on their car. “For me, that speaks volumes where someone feels so comfortable to have something that expresses hate.”
Luster said that while there is still a lot of work to be done, if we consider how long the periods of slavery and oppression, we’re really working with the last 50 years of history in which we’ve seen huge improvements.
Rance Davis, said that history is important because “if your parents and grandparents tell you something, why wouldn’t you believe it?” He said the one of the biggest problems is the fact that we simply “don’t know how to deal with people who are different.” He said that in our educational system, how to deal with these differences is often not taught, and that we often don’t work with our similarities. “Here, ever SLU students in privileged by being here.” He said that despite where you come from, the fact that you are getting a world-class education is something that unites us.
SLU students also see how we tend to focus on our differences. Tonisha Kerr ‘16 said that people tend to hang out with people who have the same opinions as themselves, so they’re never exposed to ideas outside of this bubble.
Both DeJesus and Dr. Bass also noted how these social groups play out at SLU. “I think that the admissions office does a great job of recruiting students” said Dr. Bass I do wonder now how these new populations are interacting and intersecting with each other. I still go to Dana and I still look at the tables.”
As a student, DeJesus confirms these observations. “We are not together. You can walk into the pub and see different races sitting together- that is not diversity. We’ve made the first step having people here, the next step would be to incorporate them into the community, but that’s hard.”
so how diverse is SLU statistically? According to the institutional statistics, as of 2014, 12.3% of students on campus identify as black according to the 2014 statistics. Numerically, this breaks down to 77 students compared to 1,869 students on campus who identify as white and from the United States. Davis said that there has been a Diversity Discussions Committee recently formed
Davis said “Our campus is prime, We could be one of the places that could have a serious conversation about race. We have a very good climate, fertile for a discussion on race.” He said that SLU was founded in 1856 on the Universalist Church’s principles of inclusion, so, he asked, “What does it mean to be included?”