Not Just an Isolated Incident

“Not here! Not Anywhere! Not here! Not Anywhere!” So went the cries of disgusted protestors two weeks ago when a noose was found on the door of a black Teachers College professor. Yet evidence points to a sad reality: it is here, and it is pervasive in American society at large. Much of the discussion of the recent racist events, from the disgusted to the dismissive, has treated these incidents as the unfortunate actions of a few repulsive, isolated individuals. But how many recurrences of such incidents will it take to indicate a systemic problem? Hopefully, the latest rash will open enough eyes so that this threshold has been reached, and we can begin to question how Columbia University is reinforcing a structure which continues to produce such hate. Indeed, when we look closely, we see that the Columbia administration plays a less than innocent role in propagating the social tensions which underlie these incidents.

Many have insisted that Columbia University is a bastion of liberalism, that its dominant culture is diverse and accepting. The extension of this perception is that bigots who commit acts such as hanging nooses on black professors’ doors or blanketing walls with racist graffiti are exceptions, outliers, disturbed iconoclasts. Indeed, President Lee C. Bollinger was “reluctant to draw attention” to these marginal sentiments, and declared that “we are one community; and as one community, we will overcome these hateful acts.” But the recent memory of the collective Columbia community will recall more than merely one isolated incident. What about the racist filth found graffitied in the School of International and Public Affairs just a week earlier? What about the anti-Semitic bathroom scrawl found just days later? And it is not just this month. What about the racist, homophobic, and neo-Nazi graffiti that branded Ruggles Hall? What about the “Blackey Fun Whitey” cartoon in the campus publication, the Federalist, in 2004, which declared blacks to be “cheap labor”? These are merely a few examples of a litany of such incidents. Yet these alone are disturbing and indicative enough. It is time to stop being naive and responsibly acknowledge an overt trend. At what point do the incidents cease to be isolated exceptions but, instead, a systemic problem? If not long ago, then given the slew of recent events, surely now.

Are the individuals who commit these acts acting contrary to institutional Columbia? In a word, no. Columbia University, in fact, engenders these modes of thought and thus action. In both what it practices and what it preaches, the institution plants the seeds and stokes the social tensions of which such incidents are merely the culminating bloom of the flower, the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, it is not difficult to see how the Eurocentrism of the Core subtly fuels notions of white supremacy. Too many of the Core’s texts present the white European as the torchbearer of intellectual, cultural, and civil development; historically, these notions have repeatedly been used to rationalize white Europeans’ obliteration of the human rights of non-white people, abroad and domestic (pick your favorite British colony for an example). Moreover, the administration neglects disciplines that attempt to balance the pedagogy with different perspectives on society, and has staunchly resisted efforts to implement them. A perfect example is that of ethnic studies, for which it took years of student struggle merely to get any semblance of programming, and whose immense underfunding and understaffing persists today. Or how about, a particularly pertinent example in light of nooses being hung on campus doors, the administration’s pitiful treatment of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies (IRAAS)? The Institute has four active permanent faculty members. Compared to other disciplines within the University, or even other African-American Studies programs in fellow Ivy Leagues, this number is miniscule. The University’s subordination of disciplines which emphasize a pluralist perspective, which directly challenge historical intellectual traditions of Eurocentrism, racism, and sexism, does not square with its professed aim to stomp out supremacist ideologies. Instead, it encourages them.

However, the University does not only engender racism through its choice pedagogy. Columbia cultivates such sentiment through its actions as well. To be sure, Columbia’s justification of its expansion efforts into West Harlem on the grounds that it will better utilize the territory than its current occupants is an age-old supremacist justification for imperialism. Columbia has urged for the Manhattanville area to be declared “blighted,” its inhabitants apparently incapable of sustaining a respectable community on their own. The University, which will provide the inhabitants with plentiful low-wage jobs, is the benevolent paternalist whose governance will be beneficial for all. Too often throughout history, this rationalization for imperialism has implicitly stoked notions of white supremacy. Columbia is publicly and actively treating the black population in its very own community as incapable and unworthy of some degree of self-governance. The black community in West Harlem is not worth maintaining—regardless of what members of that community themselves think. Columbia, due to its obvious superiority, should have the right to eminent domain, a right to the property and control. The civilizing forces of progress know best; the autonomy of local people of color is merely an obstacle to this progress. Does this behavior go against traditional notions of white supremacy? Anything but. Is it in line with the same sentiments that underlie noose hung on a black professor’s door? Surely.

The frequency and consistency of “bias incidents” on our campus has become too great to naively write them off as unrepresentative exceptions. It has become a plague, and its roots seem to be more systemic than random. Indeed, the behavior of the University has done nothing to belie that these incidents are merely products of deeper, more structural tensions. Its core pedagogy is highly Eurocentric. It privileges disciplines that emphasize the traditional perspectives of power, while neglecting those which aim to spread awareness of the perspectives of the historically oppressed, its resistance to and persistent subordination of ethnic studies being just one telling example of many. Moreover, its behavior with minorities within its own community explicitly utilizes and perpetuates traditional supremacist ideology. So how can we remedy these seemingly endless incidents? As the problem seems systemic, the solution will require structural change. The usual rhetorical condemnation offered by President Bollinger will not do. Actual policies which engender these sentiments must be changed. Until then, don’t be surprised to see more “isolated incidents.”

The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in sociology and history.