Dear Colleagues, Welcome as those links and references are, Im not clear about what aspect of our recent

faculty meetings the subject of implicit bias is supposed to be addressing !here were not to my knowledge incidents of implicit bias on the timeline !uajuanda has been setting out, and I dont belie"e that, say, the #frican #merican student$to mention just one of them%%who is currently trying to appeal his con"iction on "arious bias charges for his use of the n%word in a drinking game is also accused of implicit bias &e and se"eral of his friends ha"e been found guilty of e'plicit bias !hose con"ictions, I might add, carry e'plicit penalties !hey carry implicit ones as well( time that would be better spent preparing for e'ams is now being spent preparing an appeal With all these e'plicit actions going on in the background, I came to the special faculty meeting on !uesday hoping that the Dean would be e'plicit in the foreground too( that she would begin by updating us all on some of the facts$especially since some of these facts would gi"e us a clearer, less alarming picture of the chanting incident, the one incident on the )%incident timeline that Id learned more about !here was, after all, an implicit narrati"e about this incident already at work on campus, and there had been for some time #t the December *rd +aculty ,eeting, !uajuandas description of the chanting was bare%bones( -n the .aturday night before !hanksgi"ing, a person in one of the residence halls was awakened by the sound of a group of people yelling and chanting racist phrases /0White 1ower, 0White .upremacy, things about 0niggers2 3ut the community narrati"e, which was itself part of a still larger story or timeline, was out and about ,usa #hmed, a student and 4#, put it this way in the Dec 5th edition of the Piolog( !hen, on .aturday, 6o" 7*, the racism increased It was no longer just words written in a conspiratorial manner but words e'pressed "ocally, "iolently and loudly$ 06igger8 6igger8 and 0White 1ower8 # resident o"erheard these painful words and reported the incident In "iew of such an alarming account, why not take the opportunity to set the record, if not straight then a little straighter, at least with respect to the most basic facts as we know them9 Confidentially cannot ha"e been the issue, since straightening the record would not ha"e meant pro"iding a story where there was none It would instead ha"e in"ol"ed replacing a misleading and rather incendiary narrati"e /authored by no one in particular2 with a narrati"e that was, if not entirely consoling, far less troubling( a group of student athletes, a couple of minority students /one of whom is #frican #merican2 among them, drinking, getting loud, and fist%bumping one another with a raucus and, I belie"e, non%malicious use of the n%word and white power -f course anyone can understand why a black female resident especially would ha"e been alarmed by all this -ne can understand too why our students, hearing a "ague rendition of the story, would ha"e been :uick to put it in the category of racist attacks, to :uote ,usa #hmeds Piolog headline 3ut whats harder to understand is why, when presented with an opportunity to let us know that one of the most alarming elements in series of troubling e"ents%%e"ents that include kind;s< of beha"ior;s< that ha"e become systemic, to :uote from the Dec *rd minutes%%was of a character different than we had supposed, we were gi"en instead an update on community meetings and protests

Whate"er the reasons for missing this opportunity, the immediate effect could not ha"e been clearer( we could talk about hurt feelings, intolerance and its remedies /and now implicit bias2 without e"er ha"ing to :uestion the premise on which the entire discussion has been built( that things are erupting this fall, to :uote again from the Dec *rd minutes, and that these things ha"e had the cumulati"e effect of making people fearful, afraid, and angry Why arent more of us /many ha"e, I know2 :uestioning this premise more openly and directly9 !he reasons are comple', but heres a partial e'planation, which I ask that you consider 6o one doubts that some people, perhaps a good many, are fearful, afraid and angry Isabelles email is testimony to the kinds of sympathies that are aroused when we see our students /and members of the faculty and staff2 in distress !heir suffering is real -ur sympathy for them is real 3ut I belie"e that we assume, consciously or unconsciously, that since those two things$their suffering, our sympathy%%are real, then the proposed causes must also be real If you call into :uestion the apparent causes of the suffering, youre calling into :uestion the suffering itself, as well as our sympathy for that suffering We need to resist that logic with all our hearts and minds !uajuanda resisted it admirably when she listened to those students who felt that one of our colleagues was descriminating against them in class .he didnt let their "ery real suffering, and her real sympathy, ipso facto establish the real racism the students thought they had been subjected to .he decided to go and see for herself -nce she did, she concluded that the students had misunderstood things .he didnt for a moment deny their "ery real feelings 6or did she erase her own "ery real sympathy 3ut she did deny that they were right about the cause of their suffering It wasnt racism, it was something else I would encourage us all to follow !uajuandas own best e'ample .o when we witness, or read about%%as I did late this morning%%the student Isabelle mentions, who described the feeling of walking around her dorm or of going to class in fear of passing or sitting by bias embodied in an unidentified peer, we should all take account of that suffering and sympathi=e with it We should all, as my colleagues ha"e been urging us to do in their sign%offs, stay warm( warm to both their "ery real pain and our own real sympathy with that pain 3ut Im also going to urge us stay cold, "ery cold, as cold as the peak of the ,atterhorn when it comes to considering the cause of that suffering .o, with the heat all the way off, Ill ask( does any of us know how to tease out the "arious sources of the real pain this young woman has felt, how to establish how much of her real fear and real suspicion is based on an accurate account of our campus community, and how much is based on rumor9 Can anyone say just how much of her "ery palpable, "ery real sense of alienation has its root in misapprehension, and how much in fact9 &ow much in misleading, uncorrected stories about racist chanting, and how much in a biased campus9 Can anyone tell me, in other words, where a culture of intolerance lea"es off, and a culture of fear begins9 !hese :uestions are important e"en when considering the clearest, most objecti"e sources of this young womans pain !ake those race monologue posters, for e'ample, and the offensi"e graffitti !hose posters really were torn down and really shredded !he offensi"e graffitti really was written, both on the 4#s white board and on the post%its

that had been handed out to solicit responses !hose are real things that cause real distress in a number of students 3ut what do we know about the person or persons who tore down those posters9 Were they white, black, hispanic, bi%racial, multi%racial9 Was it a student, or someone from off campus9 #nd what were their moti"es9 Was it an e'pression of racial hatred, or an attempt to stir up trouble9 3oth9 6either9 If you tell me that none of this matters much since the effects are the same /real hurt feelings, real suspicions2, Ill say that I would agree with you if we were content to stick with those effects and only those effects( with the young womans pain and our sympathy with that pain 3ut were not We "ery readily start mo"ing from particular incidents to broad conclusions about sources and about the campus culture generally We begin constructing timelines and talking about things erupting this fall that were below the surface last year, as !uajuanda did in her report to the faculty on December *rd -ne problem with timelines and narrati"es of that sort is that they begin attracting, in circular fashion, lots of confirming e"idence Consider for e'ample the hurt feelings of the students in that class the Dean mentioned( why would they e"en be included among the things that ha"e erupted this fall which are systemic9 3y !uajuandas own account, the students misidentified the problem #nd what about the bookstore display and course poster9 &ere too, real sensiti"ies may ha"e been aroused, but under what possible socio%psychological rubric do these things count as eruptions of something systemic9 #s Will, >lliott and se"eral others suggested on !uesday night, what seems to ha"e erupted in the bookstore display and the course poster is nothing more than the rough and tumble of a liberal arts college, a college where people are bothering to teach courses on race, and where bookstores are taking the trouble to display representations of .acagawea in the first place !hen too, once you"e got a systemic narrati"e going, it becomes harder to see a particular thing in something like its own terms !hats especially true when something seemingly as self%e"ident, and pattern%confirming, as those racist chants comes into "iew What else could they be but hate or bias speech9 If anything fits the bill, those chants do 3ut surely one thing that suggests the inade:uacy of that description of those chants is the fact that, as we all now know, a student who was using the n%word as a toast in what turns out to ha"e been a drinking game is himself an #frican #merican !hen too, the fact that the other students in"ol"ed were part of the most di"erse e'tracurricular organi=ation on campus$the football team$might also be worth serious consideration Is this language common in the locker room and on the field9 &ow is this "iewed there, among the players9 Is there an o"erlap with hip%hop9 I dont suggest for a moment that there are easy answers to these :uestions, or that we should not be concerned about the real feelings of that scared student who was awakened in the middle of the night 3ut it does suggest that we"e got a far more comple' situation on our hands than were prepared to understand !he kind of comple'ity Im talking about may well be found in the links that ha"e been mentioned so far 3ut another place, with less theoretical language, might be 4andall ?ennedys book, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word ?ennedys last two paragraphs seem strikingly rele"ant ?ennedy has just been talking

about some of the costs that may come from reno"ating nigger, and then he adds another A diminished ability to sigmatize the word is another cost. As nigger is more widely disseminated and its comple ity more widely appreciated! censuring its use"e#en its use as an insult"will become more difficult. The more aware $udges and other officials become of the ambiguity surrounding nigger! the less li%ely they will be to automatically condemn the actions ta%en by whites who #oice the N&word. This tendency will doubtless! in certain circumstances! lead to unfortunate results! as decision ma%ers show undue solicitude toward racists who use the rhetoric of comple ity to co#er their misconduct. Still! despite these costs! there is much to be gained by allowing people of all bac%grounds to yan% nigger away from white supremacists! to sub#ert its ugliest denotation! and to con#ert the N&word from a negati#e into a positi#e appellation. This process is already well under way! led in the main by African American inno#ators who are taming! ci#ilizing! and transmuting 'the filthiest! dirtiest! nastiest word in the (nglish language.) *or bad and for good! nigger is thus destined to remain with us for many years to come"a reminder of the ironies and dilemmas! the tragedies and glories! of the American e perience. .e"eral things are worth noting here, but Ill point to one that seems to ha"e immediate, one might say dire, import ?ennedy, imaginati"e as he is, does not e"en consider the possiblity here that an official could condemn an #frican #merican for the use of the n%word !his book was written more than a decade ago, and maybe things ha"e changed 3ut if the College is breaking new ground on such an e'plosi"e issue as this, I hope we"e thought about it thoroughly, and considered all the conse:uences #nd if were also going to enroll white power in the catalogue of condemned speech, then someone ought to be compiling a list of condemned words to hand out to entering first%year students 3ut of course that might cause problems too ,ight not the list itself be taken as bias hate speech9 What if someone is reading it aloud9 What if shes reading the list at night o"er the phone to a grandmother who is hard of hearing and wakes a sleeping%%and now frightened%%neighbor9 Come to think of it, what if someone had walked by .mith &all ten days ago and heard, as he certainly would ha"e, the words nigger and white power coming out of that room9 Wed better be prepared to answer the :uestions, because you can bet that our students$not to mention their parents and lawers$will be asking them &oping that you all stay warm and cold, @yell