Earlier this week, to the horror of many, a Black student from Lipscomb University a predominately white school wrote about her experience while attending the president of the university’s home for dinner, which featured eyebrow-raising centerpieces of cotton stalks in jars along with collard greens and cornbread to eat.
What was more alarming than the insensitive dcor and Southern-style fare were the comments under the president’s apology on Facebook, which probes the deeper issues surrounding cultural awareness and the intersections of privilege.
When Lipscomb University President Randy Lowry invited a few of his school’s Black students over to his home in the Tennessee area for a hosted meal, they were highly offended by what one student described as being provided what resembled “many black meals” featuring traditional “mac n cheese, collard greens, cornbread, etc.”
And although one could argue that the meal is standard Southern cuisine embraced by many homes and restaurants throughout the South, the night before was, according to the same student, a dinner for Latino students that did not feature the same meal or cotton and twigs for centerpieces. Instead, they were served tacos something equally as eyebrow-raising.
In an effort to diffuse the situation, Lowry apologized in an email that was shared on the school’s Facebook page that read, “Several students shared with me their concern about the material used for centerpieces which contained stalks of cotton. The content of the centerpieces was offensive, and I could have handled the situation with more sensitivity.”
The president of the university further added, “I sincerely apologize for the discomfort, anger or disappointment we caused and solicit your forgiveness” before encouraging students to spend more time engaging in conversation in “either small groups or individually.”
The sensitivity that seemed to be lacking aside from the disastrous meal was the awareness of Tennessee’s Southern backdrop that’s rooted in racism and what that means for many who are not white particularly during a time of peaking tension in post-modern racism here in America. Though reluctant to secede at first, Tennessee, a state below Kentucky, was still a Confederate state during the Civil War, which can leave many on edge who do not have the privilege of blending in with the 78.7 percent white-majority.
“You’re seeing a display of torches at night, which is reminiscent of the KKK,” said Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer.
In fact, several people responding in the nearly 800 comments under Lipscomb’s Facebook post appear to misunderstand “white privilege” and, ultimately, fail to accept responsibility for not being more aware of how the intersect of privilege operates.
One person wrote, “I am a white person, raised very poor, had a Mother and Father who picked cotton right beside black people. They didn’t feel oppressed. They were just glad to make a little money in order to feed 12 children. By the way, my daughter attended [Lipscomb] when it was a fine Christian College, and didn’t get involved in any Political Correctness nonsense. ‘Cotton’, for crying out loud.”
Another person replied, “My momma was a dirt poor sharecroppers daughter who cotton her whole life & was proud to do it! She doesn’t dwell on the past or think anything of it. It was a living. Good grief This PC mess has got to stop.”
What many fail to realize is that Blacks were forced into picking cotton as slaves with no rights. It’s hard to be proud of having to pick cotton when you were at one time referred to as 3/5 of a human simply based on the color of your skin.
Magical thinking will not move the needle on your diversity efforts, or your career, if your leadership is not accountable for results.
Yes, many must make a living based on their circumstances, but when you aren’t even seen as a person in the eyes of many, paired with no life-advancement options and little control of your destiny it’s hard to truly compare the scenarios. This is especially important considering that if a poor white person who picked cotton polished himself up, created a new name and walked into a store, he could physically blend in with not only white people, but also the wealthy white people that surely judged him for being poor.
Such costumes don’t exist for Blacks, unless they are born with extremely European features. Had the roles been reversed, the Black person would have immediately been called a derogatory name and thrown out of a store. For the most part, the fact that a Black person’s life circumstances were a direct reflection of their skin pigmentation is something that should be acknowledged and not awkwardly compared to the other side as though it’s not true. They were at a disadvantage in a situation where being white had the advantage.
Gina Crosley illustrated a similar point in a blog post on the Huffington Post called, “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person,” where she initially didn’t understand how she could be privileged because she grew up poor. “When that feminist told me I had ‘white privilege,’ I told her that my white skin didn’t do [explicit] to prevent me from experiencing poverty,” Crosley wrote.
It wasn’t until Crosley read Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 piece “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” that she began to see how “being born with white skin in American affords people certain unearned privileges in life that people of other skin colors simply are not afforded.”
For example, she referenced many of McIntosh’s points: “If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.”
Along with: “If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area, which I can afford and in which I would want to live.”
Aside from race, privilege can operate in situations regarding citizenship, sexual orientation, ability, class, sex and gender identity.
Although I am a Black female who is at a disadvantage in two ways regarding climbing the corporate ladder based on both my gender and my race, I am at an advantage as a person who is heterosexual. I am also at an advantage in comparison to my Black male counterparts when pulled over by a white police officer.
When a student asked Lowry why he decided to dress his dinner table in what could be easily considered insensitive to people of color, he responded that he “didn’t know” and thought that it was “fallish.”
“THEN he said ‘it ISNT INHERENTLY BAD IF WERE ALL WEARING IT’ then walked off,” the student wrote.
Serving meals based on your own meal prepping expertise or traditional family recipes that would impress the taste buds of any individual is vastly different from serving a meal to a person that you can barely cook yourself solely based off their skin and what you assume they would eat based off stereotypes.
Understanding concepts such as both cultural awareness and privilege is important for any person to learn, no matter what race or cultural predispositions one might have, in order for everyone – as a whole – to truly move forward. You can’t solve a problem unless you understand it.
