The Uphill Battle: Life at Amherst College for a Woman of Color
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā What happened in Frost Library, from 1 PM until around 4:30 PM on Thursday, was cathartic and necessary and, at times, beautiful. It certainly was the most valuable three plus hours I have spent at Amherst since I arrived in 2014.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā I didnāt speak, not because I had nothing to say, but because there were so many women and men saying what I have felt and thought and discussed over and over again, at Val or in my dorm room, walking across the quad or waiting for the PVTA. The stories being told were stories I have seen or heard myself, again and again, either in person or from my friends of color. The difference now was hearing someone say, in front of a large group of people, what I have so often said quietly, to one or two close friends. It is so difficult to put into words what I felt on the first floor of Frost that day. It is so difficult to describe what it feels like to see so many black students who never, ever, ever talk about racism on campus stand up and tear up and discuss all the quiet, hard things I go through every day. It was so difficult but so empowering to hear people snap or clap and realize that what can so often feel like a one man, uphill battle, is something so many others are also feeling.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā I lived in Charles Pratt, which is the largest freshman dorm, for my first year. My second semester, I noticed that many of my black and brown friends started sleeping for twenty-three hours a day. They wouldnāt get out of bed in the morning to go to class or they would promptly return from class and take long, naps that didnāt seem like naps anymore. This is college, their roommates and friends would say when I brought it up. Theyāre just chilling out. I didnāt know any better, although I should have, and I kept my opinions to myself. I didnāt say what I felt, which is that it isnāt normal to sleep that much every day. That people who do arenāt slacking off or chilling out or whatever else college kids do but instead are sad, really, really sad, and that someone needed to help them. I can think of faces who left Amherst College for unspecified reasons that semester ā because it was ātoo muchā or because āthey just couldnāt get it togetherā ā and how some of them have come back and some of them have not and will not. I wish they could have seen this protest. I wish they couldāve been here with us. Maybe it is naive, but I think it would have made all the difference.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā One of my friends, who does not go out on weekends anymore and plans to take a full year abroad, will sometimes joke, āThese white people got me fucked up.ā Black women at Amherst College, especially dark skinned black women, black women who choose not to straighten their hair, black women with āblackā features, do not enjoy going out on this campus. People can say whatever they want, but thatās a fact. And while going out is not a guaranteed part of the college experience, I sometimes think the hardest thing about Amherst is how it convinces so many black women that they are not beautiful. It is difficult for any woman to believe she is beautiful but it is even more difficult when the entire social structure of her school is actively, purposely, whenever she sets foot in a social space on the weekend, telling her that she is not. When my friends talk about going abroad, they describe the classes and the culture and the language, but they also describe being able to feel pretty. Being able to dress up and look nice and have that be appreciated.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā So many stories were shared on Thursday but one which wasnāt, one which deserves to be heard and which I will never forget, and which is probably not surprising to anyone who has been at Amherst for a long time, is that of a black woman who was a senior here when I was a freshman. She was actively involved in organizing the Black Lives Matter movement in her fall semester. She was also on the womenās soccer team and completing her math major. In her second semester, six weeks before graduation, with a job set up and waiting for her, she failed a midterm in one of her classes. Instead of taking it in a stride and moving on, the stress of all the pressures sheād been facing that year caught up to her. She decided that she needed to take a semester off. Her friends begged her not to ā she could pass the class, she was a first generation student, and the job would not be waiting if she took a semester off. She was only six weeks away from graduation. Somehow, someone in the administration signed off on letting her leave. No one sat her down and told her that she could do it. No one sat her down and said she could fail every test from now until May and she would still graduate with an Amherst degree and a job waiting for her in New York. No one sat her down and said, I donāt care how youāre feeling right now, youāre graduating in six weeks. I do not think anyone cared. It has been a semester, and she has still not come back to Amherst.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā There is so much pain in the black community here. There is so much joy, and there is so much community, and there is so much love, but it all comes from a deep well of shared pain. It is difficult to exist in a space that is not for you. It is difficult not to feel guilty for succeeding socially in that space and it is even more difficult to know succeeding is simply not an option for you, maybe because you are too dark, or too poor, or simply too black. It is difficult to exist with white students who have a deep, obsessive love for black culture, for black slang, for the occasional black person, but not for all black students. I think about my friends who major in STEM subjects like Chemistry, or Math, or Computer Science who can go semesters, or even their entire college career, not being taught by a single professor who looks like them, who are āweeded outā in beginner pre-med classes on a campus which already feels like they are being weeded out, just by existing.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The uprising will probably not change any of these things that radically. But I hope it changes it a little bit. And I hope that all the first years who had this experience off the bat, who got to experience the very best of what Amherst has to offer, see that and know that. What I know is that this protest, the women who organized it, the people who slept on the floor and carried signs and camped out for it, have made me, for the first time in a long time, very proud to be an Amherst student. Very proud and hopeful, too.
