Leks and the City, except the city is Oberlin, Ohio, Issue 13: More About (& From) Black People!

by Lekan Aleshe-Shittu, Staff Writer

Hello, hello, hello, dear friends! I hope you’re well. Before we get into it, I want to say thank you. Numerous people have come up to me to speak about my last column, and it means the absolute world to me. I write these not thinking that anyone is actually reading them, and so these conversations have been jarring and exciting and fulfilling. A few days ago, someone I’d never met sent me a beautiful email with the title, “YOU’RE NOT CRAZY!” I’m grateful :) Now that that’s out of the way, here are this week’s thoughts.

In exploring what to write about this week, I decided rather quickly that I wanted to keep the conversation on Blackness at Oberlin going. Instead of sharing my own thoughts, though, I wanted to use this space as an avenue to center the unfiltered meditations of other Black students. I asked a few friends about their experience here. This is what they had to say: 

Friend #1: “In white spaces at Oberlin I have been made to feel like a dog that is known to bite. I have watched students become so hesitant to say something wrong to me, I am spoken to like a child. Why are you walking on egg shells with me, a visibly Black person, in a way you don't with white/non-Black students? I get it, none of us want to perpetuate harmful-isms and hurt others. No one wants to do the wrong thing, but at what cost? Do you view me as a complete equal? Are you scared of harming me or are you scared of me?

 I am not convinced most students who treat me this way are concerned about genuinely harming someone through racial power dynamics, because I see the ways students, passively or actively, uphold a campus culture that isolates, others, and/or degrades students of color. Instead, I think white students, like anyone, are afraid of judgement. However, it reads like this: 

‘How could I possibly feel good about my moral high ground if I mess up with someone who might hold me accountable? Therefore, I cannot be judged if I do nothing worth judging.’

Here is my secret. I wasn’t waiting for you to mess up to judge you. I have been holding my breath the entire conversation not because I want to cancel you, start an issue, or whatever else. The truth is harsh but simple—as a Black person I have to understand white people to protect myself and the people I care about from racist harm. I don’t have the privilege to relax in our interactions, and this is tiring. I watch students treat us like bombs ready to tick, for we might challenge your entitlement to morality/space/money. 

To the places and people on campus who let me exhale, I love you. We’re going to make it through.”

Friend #2: “I feel like as a Black person on this campus, it’s difficult sometimes because everybody wants a bit of the culture without paying real homage and respect to it. The key thing that I think of is Jazz Forum last year, when this dude, after finishing forum, was asked what his greatest influences were. He mentioned a Jewish jazz artist when the genre that he’s playing is a Black genre. Like, this is Black music that he's playing, and instead of highlighting Black musicians who are great, he instead focused on a super niche set of musicians. And that's very upsetting. 

I also feel like, as a Black man, it’s difficult to feel attractive in most spaces, especially because Oberlin’s beauty standards are very specific: it’s either you’re a tall, skinny white man, or, a white-passing biracial man. So, when you're a dark-skinned man, it becomes really difficult to find someone to kick it. Then there’s also the fear of fetishization—do you actually rock with me or am I a fetish to you?” 

Friend #3: “I think that overall, my experience as a Black person at Oberlin has been pretty decent. I really don't have too much to complain about academically because I’ve been really fortunate to exist in two departments that are very race conscious. Being in the departments is fine, but it's really weird to go to events and be the only Black person there. Socially, you know, I exist on the south end of campus. It's mostly Black and Brown students there, and I don't really necessarily interact with white students. In freshman year, it really seemed like nobody was really interested in getting to know me romantically, too. I’ve not met a white person who started a conversation with me. I’ve always been the one to do that, with the exception of, like, one or two people. Nobody would ever come up to me and talk to me, or just strike up a conversation. I understand that people gravitate toward people who look like them, but it's really sad when you sit in classrooms for example and realize that they’re low-key racially segregated. 

One time, I had a non-Black friend call me a monkey. I completely forgot about that, but it does bring up the question of whether people here are really your friends. You think you’re cool with someone, and then they do some really awful or racially motivated shit and then you begin to question the relationship in its entirety. All my friends here are Black and that’s not intentional—it feels like it has to be that way,  because non-Black people do not want to take care of my perspective or experiences.” 

Okay, it’s me again. Of course, the Black experience here is not a monolithic one. There are hundreds of us with hundreds of different experiences. I just wanted to use this space to share a few of them. Again, I have no specific call to action here. I think it's important that we continue to have these discussions even if they make us uncomfortable. 

All my love, 

Leks.