Surviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll

Author:Rebecca Carroll [Carroll, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

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A few weeks later, Tess announced she would be starting in the master’s program at UNH in the fall. Couldn’t she just let me have this one experience? Had she planned all along to come back to UNH? Was she doing it so that she could keep an eye on me and Elijah?

Luckily, I was already planning to transfer out of UNH. I learned about a school called Hampshire College through the dean of minorities at Brown University, where I’d first set my sights when I decided that I had to leave UNH. Again, the dean at Brown, like the dean at NYU, said the issue of money would be a stumbling block, and asked if I’d heard of this school Hampshire. He said it had a reputation for being a bit of a hippie school, but that it was making a concerted effort at diversifying its student body, and its curriculum, self-designed, seemed like it might be right for me based on the conversations we had.

I scheduled an interview at Hampshire, and was, to my surprise, met by a black woman, Sunny, an assistant dean of students, who gave me a tour. She was very candid about the school’s lack of diversity, but also said she was encouraged by Hampshire’s rigorous diversity initiatives. We strolled through campus, a lateral, village-like compound with utilitarian structures, nothing especially pretty or bucolic like UNH’s campus, which immediately and ironically put me at ease. I’d had enough bucolic to last me a lifetime. Sunny said there was a strong, if small, community of color that was inclusive and low-key.

Students we passed on their way to and from classes looked both focused and relaxed, as if they were walking in a direction they wanted to go. Sunny told me about Hampshire’s membership in the Five College Consortium; how, as a Hampshire student, I would be able to take classes at one of the other colleges—Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and UMass Amherst—which offered a nice way to get off campus, which could start to feel insular after a while.

“But tell the truth,” I said. “Do you feel like the only one? Like the only black person in the room, like all the time?”

Sunny stopped, gave me a knowing smile. “I wouldn’t be here if I did.”

Sunny’s close-cut afro suited her round, inviting face. She was both honest and critical as she explained that more and more black students were coming in every year, and that black students from the other colleges frequently took classes at Hampshire, widely viewed as the most experimental and challenging of the five schools. Sunny also pointed out that, while there were by no means enough, the school had black staff and professors, none of whom were shy about throwing down the gauntlet when it came to conversations about race and racism within the Hampshire community, and in the broader national discourse.

“We are, like most things, a work in progress,” Sunny said. “But I promise you will not feel

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