Imagine this: You rush to open the door, a fresh breeze of wind greeting you as you step outside your dorm building. You’re a freshman at college, and you’re here to study your favorite subjects. Nothing can stop you. Except…something doesn’t feel right when you walk into class. The professor isn’t here yet, so you assume that’s the problem and take a seat in class. Your professor shows up and starts teaching, and yet, this unfamiliar sensation of non-belonging doesn’t seem to leave you. You look around, but every other student in class doesn’t seem to have this problem. You open your mouth to speak, and suddenly you’re conscious of the way you’re saying certain words or sentences. You raise your hand to answer attendance and that’s when you notice: you’re the only woman (possibly the only person) of color in class.
This happens to most, if not all women of color at Emerson. We suddenly realize that the color of our skin and our ethnicity play huge roles in who we want to be seen as at school. We are more careful of what we say and who we are seen with. Not to mention the sudden feeling of being an outsider. While women are the majority at Emerson (65% of the freshman who came in 2015 identify as women), students of color only make up 30% of the population. This should give one an idea on how minor the fraction of our population is at this college. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, right? No one at Emerson is a racist, so why is it a problem if there are not as many women of color who go here?
Personally, I always think twice before I say or do anything that I want to here, because I’m scared that people are going to judge me and my race because of who I am. My friends and I have a habit in India where we add different languages, such as Hindi or Telugu into our sentences in English. I have to think twice before doing that at Emerson because I’m so scared that people at college are going to assume that every Indian doesn’t know proper English. I feel that becomes such a problem for the women of color at Emerson. There aren’t as many people of our ethnicity at the college, so we feel a constant pressure to act in certain ways. If there were more Indians (using a personal example) at Emerson, I wouldn’t be forced to check how I acted.
We are a college filled with white people, let’s face it. And the harsher truth? No white person knows what it is like to be a person of color. They don’t know what it is like to question themselves because mainstream media doesn’t seem to portray anyone similar to them. They wouldn’t be standing in front of a mirror, scrutinizing their features that don’t meet Euro-American beauty standards. Yet, everyone at Emerson is ready to talk about how women of color need to be empowered and supported. That’s what puts me off the most about this college; Emerson has so many people who are ready to talk about the experiences of women of color, the kind of discrimination we face and how representation is important. Somehow, they think that it is okay for them to decide how we feel about certain situations. In all the classes I’ve taken at Emerson, I’ve had white people talk about how people of color need to be represented more, or about the problems we face. There is a difference between supporting us and speaking for us. There is another group of people who appropriate and fetishize our culture. Giving us compliments isn’t a bad thing, we are not saying that. Please tell me if you think that my outfit is on point or that my hair looks good today. But please, don’t tell me that my big lips/nose or small eyes are exotic and pretty. Or worse, don’t say that Miley Cyrus’ dreads looked great at the VMAs. She is appropriating someone else’s culture and you’re telling someone that they have beautiful features that would, however, only work on white people.
That doesn’t mean that Emerson is doing everything wrong. It warms my heart to see so many people supporting us and protesting against the injustice happening around the country. I was so happy to see that people came together to support each other. There isn’t anything wrong with the people at Emerson as much as there is with the mentality and society that we are brought up in. We are taught to look at things that are different than us in a negative light and it is hard to break out of the mold that society has placed us in. Start small: think before you speak. Help minorities feel included. Don’t mock our differences, embrace them. Help women accept that no matter what race or ethnicity they are of, they are beautiful, smart and are out to slay.