Blackface incident continues to cause consternation for some in community

The Nov. 6 edition of The Daily Athenaeum published a story about members of the West Virginia University women’s soccer team painting their faces and padding their buttocks to imitate black women for Halloween.

The President’s Office for Social Justice decided the incident was not racist because there was no ill intent and because they were participating in a fun team event.

The incident itself was not shocking.

Every Halloween, students at colleges and universities across the nation engage in racist activities.

It is as if Halloween provides blanket permission to engage in hateful behavior. Blacks, foreign and domestic, along with Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and Native Americans seem to be easy to reduce to cartoons and caricatures.

I am certain the girls on the soccer team knew they were doing something wrong, because if the report is correct, they asked their black teammates to agree with their choice of costume.

We do not ask permission for things we know are appropriate.

There is no need to.

But I am perfectly willing to believe they have no idea just why they needed to ask.

And I am sure they are unclear about why their Facebook photos should have found their way to the President’s Office for Social Justice for investigation.

Blackface has an ugly legacy that is not a part of our collective education.

We are not taught about how whites painted themselves as caricatures of blacks, to dehumanize us, making it all the more permissible to keep us bound, to marginalize us, to lynch us and to do it all with impunity.

What is now seen as excusable because it was fun was also fun public entertainment in the recent past.

It was particularly fun for audiences to gather during slavery and through Reconstruction to watch men painted in blackface with exaggerated facial features perform as jovial ignorant caricatures of blacks – Jim Crow, sambos and coons.

With the advent of film and television, people were able to enjoy the mockery on the big screen or in the comfort of their homes.

Here in the early 21st century, there is still much fun to be had in demeaning people of color.

The obvious lesson from this incident is that we have holes in our education.

People who would very much like not to be called racist deal in racist speech and activity on a regular basis because of their ignorance.

Blacks as well as whites are ignorant of our national history.

We could all stand to learn more about who we are and from whence we come.

I sincerely believe that if those members of the soccer team knew they were choosing to participate in something with such a hateful legacy, they would have made a different choice.

This is an important lesson, but a larger lesson can be taken from the institutional response to the incident. Truthfully, several messages have been sent by WVU.

First, WVU has said to people of color inside this institution, "You are on your own."

This institution is not interested in addressing the abundance of ignorance surrounding the legacy of racial hatred in the United States.

Nor is the institution interested in standing up against demeaning behavior toward members of this community.

In essence, WVU has told us that we can either suffer racial indignities or leave.

It is no wonder there are so few people of color on this campus if this is the institutionally promoted and maintained environment.

Statements from the President’s Office for Social Justice quoted in the original story are an invitation to dress up in blackface every Halloween to come and perhaps on any other occasion that arises.

Such students will always have this incident to point to and say, "It was a fun event."

Because if fun is had by anyone, even at the expense of other members of the community, it is okay.

So, blackface is fine if it’s fun? What other fun bigoted activities can earn exemption from the President’s Office for Social Justice?

Finally, WVU has said to people outside the University, "This is who we are."

We are an educational institution that looks at a teachable moment and pushes it aside. We believe if no one intended to hurt anyone’s feelings, no harm was done.

It does not matter if those girls cried their eyes out pleading they didn’t mean anything. Nor does it matter that students agreed in advance.

People charged with seeing racism at work and stopping it should be able to see the incongruity of needing to ask permission, or make agreement, when there is nothing wrong in the first place.

Furthermore, it should not be the job of students to balance the racial attitudes and dispositions of their classmates and teammates with all of their other responsibilities as students.

Perhaps they are not interested in teaching their peers. Maybe they are just as ignorant of history as everyone else in this situation seems to be.

It is not their responsibility as students to manage these kinds of circumstances.

If the University is serious about diversity, the Office for Social Justice needs to reconsider its approach to handling these kinds of incidents.

New to this environment, I am curious to know how many such incidents have been swept under the rug in this same way over the years.

How many victims of bigotry and hatred have been left to manage situations by themselves because people were just having fun or some other such excuse?

If this is a pattern, dramatic action needs to be taken to repair what is clearly a broken office.

Denials of the existence of racism are as old as racism itself. Such denials reveal an incapacity for complex thought or belie racism itself. But to demonstrate just how universal the aversion to being mocked is, I offer a parallel.

It did not take long as a new resident of West Virginia to learn how quickly people throughout the state – from the governor to the media to individual citizens – respond with rage when anyone outside the state mocks Appalachians.

Any use of terms like "hillbilly" or "redneck" in reference to West Virginians or any intimation of backwardness or inbreeding elicits deserved accusations of stereotyping.

I support decrying the bigotry in those characterizations.

And those who understand the sting of cultural and social class bigotry should be able to understand my position on having anyone attempt to reduce me to a caricature steeped in a history of hate. What kind of institution is this?

For better or worse, people of color both within the institution and those who may be considering it need to know where we stand.

I ask the President’s Office for Social Justice to make it plain ... if it has not already.

Williams is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the College of Human Resources and Education.