Law Schools, Minority Issues, Racism

Open Letter To Black Law Students: It Doesn't Get Better

It never gets any easier to play this game of whack-a-racist, personally or professionally. And with Trump ascendant right now, I can't even say it gets better.

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I cant breathe clipartPretty much every week, I receive a tip, a text, or a chat from a law student of color who is dealing with some kind of racism at his or her law school. Sometimes the problem is another student, or group of students. Sometimes it’s the faculty. Sometimes it’s Antonin Scalia. Sometimes the issue is so inherent to “the system” that it is hard to pin the blame on any particular person.

The issues share common features:

  • A “final straw” event occurs and a minority lodges a complaint which often conflates the tipping point event with all the other acts of racism the minority had been trying to silently overcome.
  • That complaint is immediately dissected by the majority and the minority is made to feel that he or she is overreacting to the “final straw” without a fair airing of all the other grievances that led up to that point.
  • Some white person talks about “free speech,” as if that white person could possibly imagine how many times a day a minority must hold his or her tongue just to get through another day of being completely outnumbered by the majority.
  • The administration overreacts, which brings the WRATH OF FOX down upon the minorities who dared to complain in the first place. OR the administration underreacts, putting the minorities in the unenviable position of having to appear “militant” in order to be heard.
  • Nothing really changes. But Google footprints have been compromised.

If you are a minority who experiences racism in your personal or professional environment, there is no way to “win.” Say nothing, and the racists become emboldened. They’ll say more and more hateful s**t, until you punch them in the mouth. Then, you’ll get arrested or expelled for punching them in the mouth while the smug racists say “see, black people are just more violent.”

Say anything, and you’re a troublemaker. Or you’re over-sensitive. Or you’re “playing the race card.” Or — my favorite — you’ll be accused of making something about race. That’s the other kind of message I get every week: somebody telling me that I’m just flat making up racism where there is none. It gets to the point where I just want to post headlines with the commentary “THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS,” and be done with it.

A student at Emory Law experienced just this kind of gaslighting. She felt like a fellow student was spewing racist, ignorant things on Facebook. The Facebook stuff was pretty insensitive, but totally protected speech as our letter writer acknowledged. Instead of trying to trump up ignorant, stupid speech into actionable “hate” speech, our letter writer tried to talk to the Facebook poster before class about her comments, one-on-one. It’s the way we’d want people to approach things, right?

Her open letter to the Emory Law school community explains what happened next:

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Now, I could have addressed her in a different manner, showing her exactly how offended I felt. But I decided this conversation would be more productive if I just allowed her to explain what her thoughts were. The conversation went on, she explained that she disagreed with the Black Lives Matter Movement because of its radical nature (ie. looting). I explained to her that looting was a tiny portion of the events that actually take place in this movement. We went back and forth for a few minutes and occasionally someone else in the classroom chimed in. When I challenged her about the disproportionate arrests, violence, and sentencing of Black people, she asserted, in a matter of a fact manner that “Black people commit more crime”. At this point myself and the majority of the other people in the classroom became agitated. But, I responded in a way that I knew would invoke some of the feelings of outrage that many of us in the classroom were feeling at that very moment.

So, after she attempted to threaten me into submission by telling me we could discuss this in the Dean’s office, and in the most effective sarcastic manner, I told her we could, and that I felt unsafe with her in the classroom because white people are more likely to commit school shootings.

Not surprisingly, she was outraged. She was so offended that I would make such an outlandish statement (one that mirrored the grandiose generalization she’d just made about Black people) that she began to cry. For that moment, if never again, she felt exactly how the marginalized students in this University feel. She left the classroom screaming, crying, and returned with someone from the administration.

Again, there’s no way for the black person to win in these situations. There are only three conversations you are ever going to have with white people like this: the one where he or she leaves crying, the one where you leave crying, or the one where you get shot.

You’re not going to make them “see.” They’re not going to “get it.” You’re not going to talk a white person into changing his or her entire worldview. To the extent that our letter writer made a mistake, it was in hoping that person spewing silly crap on Facebook actually wanted to learn anything about how she was making other people feel.

And, you know, just between us minority folks, the administration works FOR the white students. It works for them, and their parents, and their alumni who are willing to buy buildings for the school. The faculty could be the most liberal collection of crunchy hippies this side of Burning Man, but the overwhelmingly white faculty is still most likely to see things from the perspective of the crying white woman. Or, AT BEST, you can hope for a healthy dose of soft racism of impartiality. “The hate speeches on Facebook and the peaceful protests are equally valid” — says the color-blind man.

Hell, you can’t even be surprised that the white girl in the instant case left crying. White people would cry all the time if they had to live for one second under the kind of scrutiny and prejudice black people are routinely subjected to in most environments. Crying and telling someone about it is a RATIONAL response to feeling like other people regard you as a threat just because of the color of your skin. If white people post-Columbine were treated like Muslims post-9/11, Dr. Phil would be the wealthiest man in America.

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It’s more likely that the letter writer is going to get blamed for me writing a post about it than it is that the Facebook poster will actually reconsider her positions.

All of which is to say: the open letter writer at Emory Law just got a taste of what the rest of her life is going to be like, pretty much regardless of what she does with it. It’s surely not her first taste, and it undoubtedly won’t be her last. This isn’t an “Emory” problem, this is a “your life” problem, so long as you choose to live it among white people.

You will be in this situation, over and over again. At your firm, you’ll meet the partner who thinks black clients don’t pay on time. At your apartment, you’ll meet the co-op board who doesn’t approve your application. If you are especially successful, you’ll meet the brother who decided that denigrating other brothers was his way up the ladder. Right now today, you can go try to have a drink and run into the person who is going to vote for Donald Trump. And every time you meet one of these people, they will be backed up by a cacophony of voices telling you, “That’s not racist, you’re just overreacting.” “That’s not racist, you just weren’t qualified.” “That’s not racist, it’s just speech.”

The majority will always tell you to remain silent. And if you are not careful… well then you’ll end up with somebody telling you that you have the “right” to remain silent.

You’re in the minority, but you are not alone. That’s not really advice, but that’s all I have to offer this person, and anybody else who woke up today and felt like they just couldn’t choke down one more “#AllLivesMatter” Tweet without exploding. It never gets any easier to play this game of whack-a-racist, personally or professionally. And with Trump ascendant right now, I can’t even say it gets better.

But you are not alone. You are not crazy. The struggle is real. And there are tons of us out here. Surviving.

You can read the full Emory open letter on the next page. I wrote about this letter, and not many of the others, because it was so thoughtful.

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