Situations in which being non-white or non-female can be Problematic in The Bubble.
(The Bubble is the term used by Mawrtyrs to describe the sheltered environment of Bryn Mawr’s College campus)
(originally written as an article for the campus newspaper)
All opinions stated hereafter do not necessarily represent those of The College News.
1. A Black man [me] walks through a dorm (other than Radnor, that is) passing maybe four or five white girls, not speaking, not staring, just minding my own business. Not ten minutes later, PubSafe (Public Safety’s nickname) has pulled up and is doing a non-routine walk through of the building. Lucky that I’ve been here long enough for them to know the difference between me and another suspicious male on campus.
2.Yr walking along and notice new admissions campaign flags on the light posts. Nice faces, you think. One or two of these people are your friends. The majority you’ve never seen before. And there sure is a lot of diversity up there. Then you begin to realize that all those faces are standard feminine faces. There isn’t a single butch represented on those flags. And you certainly don’t see a transman, someone who represents you, despite the fact that you are not the first or last transman who will graduate from Bryn Mawr. And in that moment, you being to wonder if the college would rather more conventional XX-owners were attracted to our less than perfect queer haven.
3. Maybe this next incident is my fault for not speaking up. Maybe the problem is that I didn’t feel like I could. I used to be in an a capella group that wanted to buy t-shirts. Unconcerned with the diversity of genders in the group, a member took it upon herself to design a tight, low-cut V-neck shirt that oh so conveniently accentuated the female shape. As only one of two gender variant members in the group at the time, our voices went unheard. We never did wear those shirts with the rest of the choir.
4. A white teacher attempts to teach an African-American literature class without providing the cultural context to properly engage with heavy texts by creators the caliber of Spike Lee and Zora Neale Hurston. As a result, white students don’t know when it’s appropriate for laughter or silence. Black students scoff at the white teacher who presumes to be woke enough to teach Black culture, even daring to teach white authors ahead of Black, perpetuating the same discourse of power that has happened since slavery era. In the words of de La (from Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”) laced with sarcasm, “Oh teach me, Great Niggerologist” is the sentiment I felt every day of that class. I vowed never to submit myself to another class masquerading as an investigation into Black culture through literature when it’s really a class teaching mostly white people what another white person THINKS they know about Blackness.
5. I think if Bryn Mawr were an institution that publicly accepted transmen and transwomen then the first question asked of me upon saying that I attend Bryn Mawr College wouldn’t be “how??” Instead, it would be “what a great school, what are you studying?” And in that instant I’d be able to tell first WHAT I DO instead of WHAT I AM.
I sometimes wonder if the trans community, hell trans people, at Bryn Mawr were more visible, if we were publicly acknowledged as belonging to the community, not as an anomaly on precious grounds, would I be more likely to feel a greater connection to the school? If Black professors weren’t so few in number, would I feel a cultural awareness in classrooms that sometimes felt absent? I think so.
TKEW // originally written circa 2013, 2014 // edited 08.14.2017
