What to do about Racist Comments on Campus

I think I should start this post by introducing myself more personably, since most of the time we just jump-start into history and forget to acknowledge our positionality – we forget our biases and merrily pretend that we do not have any or satiate ourselves by reasoning that they do not matter because we are discussing things that happened in the past. Even more, we forget that history is not fact; we forget that it is interpretation; we forget that there are no sterile histories and that we are not sterile individuals creating them.

So to begin, my name is Brad Bierdz. I identify as white; I am heterosexual; and I use he/him pronouns. I grew up in a rich, white suburb outside of Memphis. While I was growing up, my mother purposefully taught outside of the county so that I could go to a white school, and when I came to Rhodes, I was a racist, sexist, and heteronormative individual (and sometimes, I still am). When I read the article posted by Nick Pietrangelo on altright.com, my immediate reaction was not anger or rage or surprise but recognition. Of course, the note was hateful and racist and threatening, but I also saw a student that hadn’t taken the classes I had – a student that hadn’t had the connections or the experiences I had in college. I saw a whitened individual, and one that felt alienated from his surroundings – an individual who recognized his own alienation in his writing. I saw a hurt person lashing out and hurting other people (#hurtpeoplehurtpeople). I saw a person that was raised and molded in our racist, capitalistic, deterministic, and hegemonic society, yet most of us feigned surprise or rather lashed out again in some form of ostensible anti-racist action, asking for this student’s expulsion or his suspension.

As I talked to more and more students, professors, and administrators, it became clear that most people wanted the student expelled, but at the same time, that left me questioning what expulsion would actually do for the college and Nick…. We would expel him, thinking that racism was eradicated from our campus (patting ourselves on the back for doing anti-racist work), and as a result, we would alienate Nick even more from anti-racism and social movements of change. We would silence other white folk on campus, feeling very similar things, and not have those conversations around race that we might have if we had done something different. And ultimately, I was left wondering over our history… the specific history of this institution or, at least, the history of Rhodes for the past four years (the time I’ve been here). I was left thinking about Palmer Hall, Yik Yak, a sock monkey, the extreme whiteness of our campus (our faculty), and the black and brownness of our lower paying positions such as physical plant and Aramark workers. I was left wondering how Rhodes has dealt with racist actions in the past, and I was left wanting. As an institution that, purposefully or not, helps maintain inequality in the Memphis area, that upholds an epic model to capitalism, and that has reaffirmed inequality within and without our cast iron fences, I am not surprised at the extreme lack of anti-racist action on behalf of the administration and the institution as a whole; however, with a new President and with the severity of the racist, sexist, and hateful speech within the letter, I hope that some action will be taken on behalf of the school. But ultimately, we have to question whether expulsion or suspension is the best recourse when our other options are unlimited; we have to question whether expulsion or suspension are options that are lasting and effective, or whether we’re just expelling individuals to feel anti-racist momentarily. We have to love Nick and the rest of our campus; we just have to find the best way to love. Comment on what you think is the best course of action. (or if you want, you can comment on whatever).

Word count: 640

Thanks,

Brad Bierdz