Like I said (see “Another Racial Graffiti Storm” April 12, 2011), at the end of the busiest semester of my twenty-three -year career as a professor (Fall 2010), something new and important was starting.  When I returned to campus for the Spring-2011 semester, that something new and important was waiting for me. 

    I had promised to pull together a planning committee to keep the Wake Up! It’s Serious movement going.  Taylor Elkins met with me to begin that task.  We came up with names, and she sent an email out to those students.  Nothing happened… and I realized that I had to give the weight of authority and commitment to this effort.  I sent an email and seven out of eight students responded. 

    Lo and behold we held our first meeting on January 22, 2011.

    To start that meeting, I asked each student to introduce themselves.  Then I asked each to say something about “…why do you want to be part of the Wake Up! It’s Serious Movement?”

    Taylor, a white female said she wanted to learn to be an advocate for diversity.

    Natalia, of Columbian heritage, talked about living in the international dormitory, and seeing the power of diversity.

    Hayat talked about her traditional Middle Eastern, Arab-American parents and growing up in Cary, NC, and the hurt of the jokes she heard after 9/11.

    Mario, an African American male, said that for him the idea of the movement was about moving himself and other people up through education.

    Komal, of Turkish-Indian descent, said that as a resident-advisor she had seen that when the Free Expression incident happened, no one on her hall wanted to talk about it. That disturbed her and motivated her to want to work for change.

    Melody, an African American female, said she had seen too much stubbornness among her college peers about addressing racial issue, and wants to be part of a movement for change.

    Christie, a white female, said she came from a small, mostly white town, where race was not discussed in any positive way.  She said that she thought that it would be different in Raleigh, at N.C. State, but found the silence was even worse in a way.  She wants to be part of a movement to get people talking about race.

    Brittany said, “I’m white as they come; no I’m really white.”  She went on to say that as a resident-advisor, when she talked about how much the racial graffiti and anti-gay slurs offended her and something needed to be done, students laughed and asked her “…why do you care?”  She wants people to come to understand that these kinds of things hurt us all.

    Sascha, a white male, of German-Jewish heritage, said, he wanted to be part of Wake Up because “…silence in the face of intolerance is worse than the intolerance itself.”

    Why were they here, at this first meeting?  In a word the answer was… passion.  Passion for change, passion to do something about the neo-diversity problem of negative language and messages aimed at fellow students; fellow citizens of our campus. With that passion, focus, and good humor we had the neo-diverse core group we needed to get things going.

    In that first meeting, I introduced the goals of the committee; strategic planning.  I know… that sounds so bland and typical.  But our goal was to do strategic planning through action.  Yes the first two meetings involved planning, but that was to set us up for action.  I promised that we would develop concrete ideas for activities, with priorities, and that we would never meet for more than an hour and a half. 

    With that, we immediately began to put together our mission/vision statement.

    America; 9/11/2001. 

    On that 21^st century “…day that shall live in infamy,” at 1:30 p.m., I was to teach my 200 student section of Introduction to Psychology. By that time of that day, all air travel had been halted, both towers had collapsed, and no civilians knew for sure the whereabouts of the President of the United States.

     Rather than go through with my scheduled lecture on “Research Methods In Psychology,” I opened the class with John Donne’s “No man is an island.” Then I said to my students, let’s talk about what has happened in our world today. Some students revealed that they had family in New York City who they had been trying to, but could not reach. From there the discussion in the class period was somber, angry, fearful and sometimes bizarre.   

    One exchange between students was intense. “I think we should nuke ‘em,” a student yelled out. 

      It was the case that in that class, five or six of the students, who often came to class in uniform, were in the U.S. Marine Corps ROTC. When the “…let’s nuke ‘em” exclamation was yelled out, immediately one of the young Marines threw up his hand and without waiting for my acknowledgement turned in the direction of that voice and said,

  “…nuke who? You don’t know what you’re talking about! Who do we aim nuclear weapons at; were we attacked by another country today! That’s just silly!”

     It was a blistering exchange and critique. Yet all of the complexity of the mood in the room was captured by the students’ who said:

    “I don’t understand how the world works anymore.”

    “I don’t feel safe anymore.”

     Osama Bin Laden’s attack of America on 9/1/01 did not change everything.  What that terrorist attack did do was jolt us into paying attention to the many social changes that were already going on around us; change in the racial mix and rules, change in gender roles and rules, change in the ways we can communicate with each other, and change in our international relationships. With that jolt, and sudden new awareness, came anxiety; neo-diversity anxiety.

     Osama Bin Laden’s death will not eliminate that anxiety. But his death at our hands can serve to help we Americans be less vulnerable to that anxiety. My hope is that we manage this moment of emotional release. That we recognize that Osama Bin Laden was only one of the things that has been haunting us, and that the other changes are not to be feared; that we cannot “…nuke ‘em.” If we can use our emotional release in that way, we will become less vulnerable to the charlatans who try to use our anxieties to keep us fearful so that they can manipulate us to accomplish their selfish goals.

    Any psychologist will tell you that one of the worse things that can happen to a person is anxiety.  It’s bad because anxiety makes the person feel creepy and haunted.  So everything in the situation feels like a threat.

    Diversity issues have always pushed on the American psyche.  What’s different now is that it’s not diversity issues, but neo-diversity issues.  To repeat myself (see my earlier post; Back to the… A Neo-Diversity Interlude, Thursday, 10 March 2011), neo-diversity is the situation we live in today where contact with people who do not look like or sound like us, is unavoidable.  One cultural observer (Arjun Appadurai) has said that because of this we struggle with the question, “…who are the ‘we’ and who among the ‘they?’” That is the question that is causing so much anxiety in America.

    President Barack Hussein Obama is the personification of that neo-diversity anxiety. Is he one of us, or isn’t he?  Well, he’s African-American… ok, he looks black but he was raised by his white mother and grandparents.  He’s a Christian… yeah, maybe, but his middle name is “Hussein.” He’s a black man… yeah right, Harvard graduate… come on.  He’s American… maybe, if you think Hawaii is really part of America… let’s be sure; let’s see that birth certificate.

    Oh look… here’s the birth certificate! 

     I don’t know… it could be a fake; I mean after all why did he take so long to decide to show it? What was he trying to hide?

    President Obama is correct; focusing on this silliness is getting in the way of our nation addressing the serious issues before us. 

    “We’re not going to be able to (meet those challenges) if we spend time vilifying each other,” President Obama stressed. “We’re not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.”

    But that’s the other thing anxiety does to a person; it makes the person lose perspective. The creepy-haunted feelings grow more and more intense turning into paranoia. That’s why uncontrolled anxiety is so bad; that’s why anxiety is the one of the worse things that can happen to you.

    All of America is struggling with the neo-diversity question; “…who are the ‘we’ and who among the ‘they?’” That is just natural given the speed of the social changes that have come to us. Yet worse than that anxiety-of-the-day are those like Donald Trump who are feeding that neo-diversity anxiety to suit their own purpose; to keep their name in the public eye, or to sell a book that’s just ready to come off the presses.

  Silence lets people go on automatic. Being silent when a person uses group slurs or stereotypes is a bad idea.  That is what I said in my last post (April 19, 2011). Not to put too fine a point on it, but silence lets people go on automatic, never having to consider the ugly, hurtful and divisive impact of their words or the images they send around. 

      In clear evidence of this is the recent episode in which President Obama was depicted as a chimpanzee in an email distributed by an elected representative of the Orange County (California) Republican Central Committee.

 

    In her written apology, Ms. Marilyn Davenport said, “I didn’t stop to think about the historic implications and other examples of how this could be offensive…”

     “I didn’t stop to think…” is the most important part of her statement. No excuse, but that reflects the too often experienced social reality. Some Americans get in their in-groups and talk negatively about other Americans in group terms without ever being challenged about that way of talking. So, when in another social context, having been unchallenged before, those people go on automatic and we get pictures of our President depicted in racially offensive ways. 

     Or as happened in Sanford, NC, we get an email that depicts a lynching.  Why?  To remind the staff of the Department of Social Services to turn off their computers at the end of the day or there would be dire consequences.  For this we get a silhouette of a lynching?  There too someone went on automatic, pulling an image of harsh consequences from our racial history without even considering how that might offend a neo-diversity mix of local citizens.

     We set this up in our everyday interactions when we are silent when someone expresses themselves using racial, gender and other group slurs. We… set this up.

     Being silent when a person uses group slurs or stereotypes is a bad idea. Being silent shows too much tolerance for intolerance. That silence lets people go on automatic, never having to consider how their actions might influence and hurt anyone.

    I started working on diversity issues in the US Navy in 1974 (see my memoir, “Making Gumbo in the University). Back then diversity was all about black-white relations. But diversity in black and white is dead. Neo-diversity is what we live with today; a time and circumstance when for all of us, contact with people who do not look like us happens every day, and is unavoidable.  And people are having trouble adjusting to our neo-diversity America. Not so much because of prejudice and bigotry, but because of uncertainty and anxiety about how to interact.    

    Today my work is about neo-diversity with mixed groups on and off our campus. From college students, middle school students, people over 50, church groups, I have learned that one of the biggest neo-diversity problems in America is that moment when someone in a group utters words of intolerance. In all of the groups I teach and work with, that moment is described along with the reaction: “I am very uncomfortable when people do this, but I don’t know what to do.  So I don’t say or do anything.”  

    Silence it turns out is a bad idea. Silence lets stereotypes live on. Silence gives power to racial and all kinds of group-slurs; to slurs against our gay, lesbian and transgendered brothers and sisters; to slurs against our Muslim brothers and sisters. Silence gives power to divisiveness. When we are silent in those moments, we show too much tolerance for intolerance. That’s why we end up with racial graffiti. 

     Will we ever stop that intolerance completely?  No. Can we, you and I, influence how often it happens? Yes. But the change we want will not come through text messaging, face-book or tweets. The change we want will come from what we do in our face-to-face social interactions and relationships. 

    Each of you has the power to influence your social interactions. When the person you are interacting with uses negative racial, gender, ethnic or religious language, do not tolerate it. But, don’t call that person names; racist, sexist, homophobic. Name-calling is just that; name-calling. Instead of name-calling, speak for yourself.  When a person you are interacting with uses stereotypes, let that person know your standards for continuing to interact with you. 

   Don’t try to tell that person they are wrong.  Don’t try to tell that person it’s just not a good idea to talk that way. No; just quietly, but firmly, express your personal standard for the interaction. It’s time for all of us to wake up and take personal responsibility for what goes on in our interactions with other people. 

   So when a person you are interacting with uses stereotypes or slurs against a group, speak into that moment, and speak for yourself.  Simply say, “Oh I am very uncomfortable with that kind of language. I find it offensive. It hurts me.” If the person persists, walk away from the interaction.

    I tell you this as a social psychologist; a scholar of intergroup relations; a researcher.  And the research shows that kind of statement makes a difference.  It reduces the other person’s tendency to ever talk using stereotypes or to use slurs against groups. It also makes the person feel bad about their intolerant words.  

     If we really want change, silence is no longer an option. When we are silent we give power to the idea that speaking in stereotypes and slurs is ok. And that is why history repeats itself. But now is our opportunity to begin to change that. You see, it is in the small interaction moments where the next big change will occur. Now is your opportunity to create change in the small moments.

    (There you go. In the post just before this one, “Another Racial Graffiti Storm,” I promised I would post the essay based on the speech I gave at the Wake Up! It’s Serious rally against racism on November 17, 2010; promise kept.  On November 23, 2010, this essay was published in North Carolina State University’s student run newspaper, The Technician. For a pdf version click Essays.)

    November 2007; a paper noose is found hanging in a North Carolina State University (NCSU) campus bathroom. November 2008; racial graffiti threatening our newly elected President, Barack Obama, is found displayed in our (NCSU) Free Expression Tunnel, causing outrage on campus, and an investigation by the U.S. Secret Service.

 Skip a year and then on November 1, 2010 offensive racial and anti-gay graffiti was found in the NCSU Free Expression Tunnel.

     Many students in our neo-diverse student-body were starting to be fed up with this trend of free expression of racial and anti-homosexuality animosity. Now, a storm was brewing. 

    When that November 1, 2010 racial graffiti incident was being reported in local TV (and other) media, I knew nothing about what was going on. In fact it took an email to alert me that something was going on. A recent graduate, a white female, who had taken my “Interpersonal Relationships and Race” course, wrote: “I… wanted to email you to ask if you knew of the “Blackout-Against-Racism” event on Facebook that is exploding with reactions and tensions relating to the Obama Free Expression Tunnel incident?” I had not heard anything. I investigated. What I learned about the lack of information on our campus disturbed me.

    November 4^th, the day after I received that email, in my “Interpersonal Relationships and Race” course, I led an impromptu discussion.  “How many of you have heard about the recent racial graffiti in the Free Expression Tunnel?” Only twenty-eight out of the neo-diverse racial, ethnic, gender and religious mix of 65 students (in attendance that day) had heard anything. What have you heard? One answer was, “there was a picture of Obama doing indecent things and the N-word was written.” “How did you hear?”  Students first heard about this through calls from family whose sources included the Washington Post, States Fan Nation, Facebook Event, News and Observer. Most surprising—one grandmother had seen a report on Good Morning America and called her grandson.

     One student asked, “…why do people outside of the university know more than the people within it?” It was two days after the Chancellor’s statement was released that I was conducting that in-class discussion. Yet nothing had appeared in the campus student newspaper. With disgust, one student said that “…student leaders and student media outlets got an email about this incident; the university was very selective about who they shared this info with.” Even that communication was not informative. One student said, “…there is still a lot of confusion. Nobody wants to say or tell about what was really written in the tunnel.”

    Students around campus were very upset but for different reasons.  African American students had protested by blocking access to the Free Expression Tunnel and that meant that for a time those black students had blocked part of the travel access to different sides of the campus. That got the attention of university administrators and aroused mixed feelings especially among white students around campus.  Friday, November 5^th, a meeting was held with the Chancellor and the leadership of African American groups on campus. Also, through the students’ Union Activities Board a protest rally was being organized to bring together a neo-diverse gender, racial, ethnic, and religious group of students. With the mix of emotions on campus, with this neo-diversity storm, a lot was being blown around our campus. 

    That weekend I received an email asking me to speak at the rally that was being planned.  November 17, 2010 the “Wake Up! It’s Serious” campus walk and rally was held. With the 50 or so participants wearing “I’m Awake” t-shirts, and yelling “we’re awake,” the rally was the culmination of the walk through campus.  When everyone gathered, I was introduced and spoke. 

    My style was motivational, but the content was serious and concrete with the point being that in our everyday interactions we have power to speak against the use of racial, gender, ethnic, religious slurs.  When I was done I was asked if I would turn my comments into an essay for our student run newspaper, The Technician. I did. That essay was published under the title “Wake Up To Your Own Power” (see my next post).

     Here at the end of the busiest semester of my life, something new and important was starting.

    Fall semester always comes on with hurricane force winds.  But for me Fall-2010 was like no other.  Always one to pay attention to my limitations, half-way through the semester I knew I was on the edge of being knocked to my knees by that big wind and deadly rain. I was wondering if I had taken on too much.

    Except for my undergraduate social psychology course, nothing was usual in this semester.  For the first time I was teaching my “Interpersonal Relationships and Race” course as a “big” section.  Up to now I had taught the course with no more than 35 students.  Demand from students had grown, and I had seen what the course does for students and so wanted to let more students into the course.  So for the first time I was teaching the course with 75 students.  Yes, the course structure and lectures were the same, but now I had to pay very close attention to the classroom dynamic every day. And even more so on group discussion days.

   Also, over the summer I had agreed to teach a short-course for NCSU’s Encore program.  That program offers courses for retirees; really anyone fifty or older.  I had agreed to teach a six-week course; “Living on the New Racial Frontier.”  Again, since I had seen how my undergraduate course had such a powerful and positive influence on undergraduates, I wanted to try it with a different, older, audience.  That meant a couple of things.  One, it meant working to distill the 15 week course material, to fit into a six week course with each session being one-and-one-half hours.  Two, it meant taking technical, research-based material and presenting it in an accessible way to people who had intellectual interests, but who were not in a classroom every day.

    At the end of the semester I would know that I thought it went well, and I would learn that so did the 15 people over 50 who were the students. Their evaluations of the short-course were extremely positive with one saying:

    “Dr. Nacoste…made a comfortable environment for our discussion on neo-diversity. It gave me a whole new understanding of the issues we face making me rethink previous conceptions.”

    But at the middle of the semester I didn’t know this and the wind and rain had reached a gale-force; I was working very hard to keep up with my teaching goals. I had also by then done a special-one-session training for new student government leaders, as well as one for graduate students on “Teaching to the Diverse Classroom.” And that’s when the travel started.

    Fall Break (October 7-10) I was back home in Opelousas to do a book reading and signing.  That was held in the old Holy Ghost School library.  First to twelfth grade I spent in that building using that library.  Now a meeting room, when I walked into what had been our school library it hit me.  Here I was back home to present to the Opelousas community my book, “Making Gumbo in the University.” I think because there was an article in the Opelousas Daily World (see Lagniappe) that Sunday, there was a nice turnout that included four of my former classmates.  I was honored and pleased that they came.

    Skip a week and I was in Houston, Texas at a conference of academic administrators.  I gave a presentation on what university administrations need understand to, and what strategies they should take to communicate effectively with college students in this age of neo-diversity.  It went well.

    I had set up my time there so that I could hang out for a day or so before flying back to Raleigh.  Reading the Houston Chronicle on October 23^rd I came across an article about a book signing.  That afternoon, I took a cab to The Gite Gallery on Alabama street to meet and listen to Mignette Patrick Dorsey talk about her book, “Speak Truth to Power: The Story of Charles Patrick, a Civil Rights Pioneer.” [Note: I just posted my review of that book (click on my Book Reviews category).]

    Right after that period of travel is when I felt like maybe, just maybe, I had taken on too much. Along with continuing all my teaching, two major responsibilities remained.  I was to speak for our library’s Fabulous Faculty Series.

      I was also to speak to our Association of Retired Faculty. Luckily both of these were presentations about my book, “Making Gumbo…”  So preparation was minimal, although I never do the exact same presentation for different audiences and any presentation I give is energetic. 

    After those events, just as I thought the Fall semester hurricane was ending, there was a racial graffiti incident on our campus.  And I got pulled into addressing that by my students. 

    I’ll tell you that story in my next post.  For now, know that I made it through the semester feeling successful if worn out.  I was supposed to travel to Jacksonville, Florida to spend time with Phillip my brother and Elinor my sister for the holiday, but could not muster the energy.  I was too exhausted from standing in the winds that I stayed put in Raleigh to get some rest.