Editor,

It is my senior year at Pomona and in the last four I have learned a lot. Much of it has been about other people and more has been about myself. I think that I have finally become a woman, aware of myself in relationship to other women, strong and sufficient even alone.

But this year I have also had to confront the same ignorance that has always been an issue in my Pomona education. Again, another ignorant white student asking the same question about race and forcing me to take the role as educator instead of peer. "Why do all the Black/ Latino/ Asian American kids hang together in the dining hall?" Same whining voice, same dumb question.

This year, though, I’ve decided to answer. I am a young Black female who grew up in a predominantly poor neighborhood. I have learned not to expect the same of my friends at Pomona, even those of color. Although white students look at us and note that we share a common race, within our group we are definitely not homogenous, as they assume.

Within my group of friends, the difference is even more obvious. My closest, tightest "clique" is almost all Latino, composed of Mexican-American male and female Pomona students from various class and economic background. So I’m again confused by the accusation that there is no interethnic interaction. Why do I have to be friends with whites before it is considered real social mixing? I, like most other students of color at the colleges, know most of the other male and females of color. I am Black, but I regularly attend events at the AARC and CLSA and other social events. I think Justin Durivage took Daren Mooko’s "60% non-Asian American" to mean white. But students of color interact with each other all the time. Perfect example: A few weeks ago I attended an off-campus party where there were Black, Latina, and Asian American women in presence, as well as one lone white male. Why does Justin duRivage feel that there is no real interaction just because he wasn’t invited? And why is it I seem to know when AASU, Mecha, Unidos, PASA and other things meet and he doesn’t?

Perhaps he feels that, because students of color don’t always mix with whites, we are still exclusive. To this I might have to agree. I don’t want to speak for other students of color, but I made a decision long ago to include very few white people in my inner circle of friends. Sorry, guys. It wasn’t because anything about them offends me, or because I don’t like them, or because I am a separatist. The reason why was because freshman year I walked into a doll store in town and was offered their layaway plan and when I came back to my dorm room in a rage and shared the experience with my sponsor group, they all tried to make excuses. "Maybe it was because of your age," they said. "Maybe the store-owner knew you were a student." Okay, I would allow those possibilities. But why is it they were all so uncomfortable with the notion that it could also be my race, that neither of them, being white and students and young, had ever walked into one of Claremont’s stores and been told they could have their purchase "out by Christmas!"

Freshman year I dealt a lot with white guilt. I suffered through a friend of mine hugging me and saying "I wanna make right everything that my people did to your people." I took confessionals from white students who wanted to tell me all about how they had never known any Black people before they came here, white men who said they’d never "been with a Black woman." I attended all the cultural awareness forums and spoke up as the only Black woman in class in a mistaken belief that it was my job to educate white people about their own racism.

Then, my sophomore year, something crucial changed. I counted up the dollars and cents and had the startling realization that Pomona professors get paid to do what I do and I don’t. Do you know what the added stress is here for students of color? Not only do we get to be students like everyone else, peers, with the same workload and expectations, but we also get to be representatives of our race, responsible for ushering white students from ignorance to enlightenment, educators, as well as having to deal with the insecurity of just being a student of color on campus. And the experience in doubled for women of color, having to deal with the sexual stereotypes we’re expected to fulfill, the mammy/bitch, virgin/whore, and slave/slut dichotomies. We have to deal with the question of who we are, how we fit into and reject the stereotypes, and how we can become whole persons in spite of it. We have a lot of growth to do here, as well, without the added burden of helping you to grow!

I know my words seem harsh and I can’t really offer any sincere apology to people I’ve offended. That’s just the way it is. I hang with other women of color because I need a place where I feel completely safe to voice whatever opinions, thoughts, and beliefs I have, to share my experience with others and have them validate me. In short, I need friends and not leeches, trying to replicate slavery by exploited my identity and knowledge.

This year I was disturbed and hurt to find out about an incident that happened to one of our Black female faculty members. It frightened me to know that I am not safe even here at Pomona College, that students think and say racial and sexual epithets and that the administration takes it so seriously they won’t even consider those things in their response. I hate to know that I am not secure in my status as a student here, that the same thing could happen to me. But when I sat down with a group of about 15 other women of color, I found out that my feelings were not unusual. Many expressed the feeling that they had never felt safe on campus, and that they had never felt fully accepted. This incident came as no surprise to us, since we’ve almost all experienced lesser or greater forms of the same racist and sexual assaults.

Last year I went to Steele Hall to put money on my meal card. When I walked in, the woman at the desk looked up at me and said, "If you want to apply for a job, you have to go to the dining hall where you want to work." I went straight to the CLSA, to my small group of friends who were meeting for lunch, and said "Do you know what happened to me?" They didn’t judge of feel uncomfortable talking about the racism we all knew existed on this campus. They were not frightened by my anger, nor did they try to deflect it. They listened, and they got angry for me. This, I realized, is why I hang around other students of color. Exactly why.

But to those white students who do want to broaden their horizons, a few of whom I do count among my small, exclusive friend group, a word: if you really have a dedication to multicultural awareness and a desire to learn who you are in relation to other people of color, don’t sit on your ass and wait for the opportunity to come to you. Go up to the CLSA and AARC and OBSA. Get their calendars, find out when groups are meeting, when social things are happening, what you can be a part of. Don’t depend on others to educate you; educate yourself.

Sincerely,
Tiombe Jones ’02