By Raven McClendon
This letter is a response to President Anne Harris’s S&B interview, which you can read here.
President Anne Harris:
We are not living in two pandemics. We live in one pandemic: COVID-19. Slavery and its long-lasting consequences have only ever ravaged the Black American existence, whereas a true pandemic would attack anyone in its path. Anti-Blackness is not a pandemic, because it only kills Black people.
President Harris, I do not know how anti-Blackness has weakened the collective health of white people, but I do know how white supremacy has benefited you and every other white/white-adjacent person who has inhaled oxygen. Referring to slavery (the legalized trafficking, murder, torture, rape, sterilization and mutilation of Black people) and its long-lasting consequences (the prison industrial complex, redlining, voter suppression, standards of professionalism, neoliberalism, generational trauma, cultural appropriation, gentrification and microaggressions in addition to legal and illegal trafficking, murder, torture, rape, sterilization and mutilation of Black people) as a pandemic absolves all white people of their inherent racism. You, the president of my college, so blatantly soothing your own white guilt and subsequently that of my white peers, enrage me.
If white supremacy were a pandemic, why does a cure require 400-plus years of research and conversation to find?
“Poetry is Not a Luxury” by Audre Lorde:
“Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideas. … But there are no new ideas still waiting in the wings to save us as [Black] women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves, along with the renewed courage to try them out … to attempt the heretical actions our dreams imply and some of our old ideas disparage.”
President Harris, you are just now arriving at a conversation that Black people are born into. By proposing nothing other than more conversation, you insult my labors, the labors of the Black people speaking with me and the labors of the Black people who have spoken before us. We don’t need to research our own experiences because we have lived them.
Below, I have responded to quotes from President Harris’ interview with The S&B.
“So, if you’re having a conversation about Campus Safety, you’re talking also about relationships with the local police department.”
Grinnell College should avoid contact with the local police department. Grinnell College should also adopt a set of steps in place of alerting the local authorities. It seems that the only purpose the police department serves is busting students of color who have drugs in their possession. Students of color face harsher punishments for drug related offenses than white students.
Calling campus safety is usually a step before involving local authorities, so I assumed the purpose of campus safety was to avoid the police when possible. If Campus Safety and the local police department work so closely together, then there is no purpose for the current Campus Safety’s existence. Campus Safety needs to be reimagined. What does a Campus Safety not modeled after the local police department look like? It looks like a Campus Safety centered around the safety of students rather than the protection of college property.
“What I can tell you now is that we have very good structures to have the kind of conversations that we’re talking about [allowing police officers to eat in the Dining Hall]. So, we’re starting to do that work.”
It’s cute that you’re just now starting to do the work, but Black students, faculty and staff have already begun to do the work. What do you have to offer beyond structures to have conversations, anyway? The structure to have conversation is called the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. That is the structure that allows us to converse. You are late to the party. We don’t need more structures for more conversation: we need action.
The program that allows armed police officers to enter the Dining Hall should not exist. Students have already expressed their contempt for this program, so the administration should simply listen. All police officers uphold the institution of policing, which is inherently racist and anti-Black. Police officers do not make Black students feel safe and, furthermore, guns should not be allowed in a cafeteria. Cops should not bring guns, civilians should not bring guns, no one should bring guns. We don’t need more conversation; we need action.
In regard to Grinnell College’s relationship with Iowa Prison Industries, why do you think “there’s always goodwill here?” In your own words, President Harris, what are the “perceived benefit[s]” of slave labor? That’s what prison labor is: either slavery or indentured servitude. Both are immoral, dehumanizing and unacceptable. How do you condemn the “pandemic” that is 400-plus years of slavery but see the “perceived benefit(s)” of it? That is quite a paradox, President Harris!
“I see that a lot of our conversations happen on social media, and I am very eager to move that into conversations and research that we’re doing together.”
The editors in chief of The S&B asked you, “What is the best way to move either into these conversations or beyond these conversations into action?” Instead of moving conversation to a place that is no longer accessible to the students, you should consider getting active on social media, too. Students are allowed to choose their mode of discourse, and this generation likes social media. Meet us there. Listen to us there. Engage with us there. We have been having this conversation. Again, you are late to it.
How quickly task forces by the administration are formed reminds me of a time when I sat in Student Senate and listened to three cisgendered men tell me about the Diversity and Inclusion Task Force they implemented without the proper consultation of students. Students follow the examples that administration set; administration should know to include more students, not just SGA cabinet members or white students, on these task forces. Lana is our SGA president, but she doesn’t speak for all of us students. She definitely doesn’t speak for all Black students or Black women.
“We want to take the time to make an informed decision that really hears all arguments and all parties.”
President Harris, I do not care to listen to the “arguments” of all students. Racism doesn’t require an argument, nor will I listen to opinions that belong to non-Black people. Since you claim to care about harm caused, then listen to those who have been harmed. We know what we want, and your I-just-learned-that-racism-exists attitude is not what we need. We are not moving “from a language of diversity and inclusion to a language of anti-racism.” If that were true, you would have used anti-racist rhetoric during your interview. Instead you spewed euphemisms and fluff.
If you and Grinnell College don’t plan on holding yourselves to anti-racist standards, then say that. Say, “Black womxn, all Black students, we do not care about your wellbeing. ‘With all deliberate speed’ we want to continue to have more conversations because that’s easier than actually giving up privilege.” Giving up privilege looks like holding yourself, your co-workers and your students accountable. Stop letting professors use academic freedom as an excuse to harm Black students. Stop letting non-Black students use their own ignorance or indifference as an excuse to harm Black students.
President Harris, do better, or we will find better. No one is safe because we are tired.
-Raven Chanel McClendon ’22