can intersectionality save us?

Students at the College of William and Mary are demanding action from the College’s administration instead of continuous empty sentiments. They have dedicated their Saturdays to fight for recognition and change. Various organisations across campus have also stood up for intersectionality for their causes in conjunction with #BLM.

Within the backdrop of an already anxiety-filled year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects, the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of white police officer Derek Chauvin, has further shed light on the marginalisation of minority groups in this country, especially Black Americans. Growing research and evidence finds that Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to contract the coronavirus, and mounting evidence posits that Black Americans are more likely to be killed by the police. While movements such as Black Lives Matter have advocated for the remediation of these issues in the past, it seems that these conversations have taken place on a much larger scale since Floyd’s death. 

While a national reckoning on systemic racism has been long overdue, we cannot overstate the emotional toll that Black Americans are facing while simultaneously doing the work to educate and open up to their non-Black peers. At colleges and universities across the country, especially at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) with difficult pasts like the College of William and Mary, Black students feel the brunt like no other. Of course, all college students continue to navigate unprecedented and difficult interruptions to their learning environments. Still, Black students are doing so while being forced to continually examine their place in an institution that has historically mistreated them and caused them much harm.

“I think what people should know is that generational trauma and generational grief are real, and that right now it’s so psychologically difficult for marginalised groups — COVID, on top of the election, on top of BLM, and then you want me to write that paper and give it to you by 11:59?” I.A.*, a co-president for Rainbow Coalition, one of the College’s LGBTQ+ student organisations, said. “I really, really implore people to be empathetic and compassionate.”

The College’s various student groups, as well as individual students, have addressed and advocated for Black Lives Matter since the movement’s inception seven years ago. However, as has been the case in a number of colleges and universities across the country, William and Mary’s involvement in Black Lives Matter is a microcosm of the national conversation. To what extent and at what speed change is affected varies greatly by the institution, however. 

The College’s  marginalised students, organising both within their student groups and on their own, feel that this change is not happening fast enough, even with the supposed heightened awareness of such issues within the community. As a result, students are using resources within their organisations to implore their peers and the administration to do better by the Black community at William and Mary, with attention paid to all of the intersections in which Black students exist and identify with. It seems that, more so than at any point in the College’s history with the Black Lives Matter movement, group solidarity and collaboration have become key principles of organisers’ strategies.

In early October, Loni Wright ‘21, co-president of the Black Student Organisation, and Keyyatta Bonds ‘21 co-authored an 18-page document entitled “An Open Letter to Recognised Student Organisations.” In it, they closely examine numerous issues with regards to diversity and inclusion in William and Mary’s student organisations, exploring issues from classism and accessibility to tokenism and accountability while providing detailed policy recommendations for each topic. Created as a way to ensure more diverse and inclusive spaces on campus, Wright and Bonds see this document as required reading for student organisations looking for answers in the wake of a national outcry for change. 

The document’s creation is the culmination of intensive planning, strategising, surveying, and data collecting. Multicultural organisations (MCOs) and recognised student organisations (RSOs) received surveys that were created specifically for their category of organisation, and over 100 student organisations’ responses were analysed. RSOs were asked to self-reflect in terms of diversity and inclusion and ask any questions they wanted to be answered, while MCOs were asked to evaluate the performances of RSOs in these categories. Data collection and aggregation was meticulous but crucial, as Wright’s and Bonds’s findings ultimately led the open letter to materialise in the way it did. Initially planned to be an FAQ encompassing all of the questions submitted, a disparity between RSOs’ perception of themselves in terms of diversity and inclusion and the evaluation of MCOs was notably large. 

“To me [an FAQ] was more, ‘Oh, if you have a question, maybe take a look,’” Wright said. “It doesn’t acknowledge that there is a problem. It’s just an ‘in case.’ Whereas an open letter is more of a ‘There’s a problem. We all know there’s a problem. We need to fix this.’ And this isn’t how you fix this, it’s your guide to beginning that process.” 

Their survey data presented a large discrepancy between how inclusive RSOs believed they were and the reality that they were not, based on indicators such as collaborations with cultural and identity-based organisations or diversity within executive boards. The survey responses showed that 76.5 per cent of RSOs surveyed had never collaborated with an MCO or identity-centered organisation (like those centered around sexual orientation, religion, and other beliefs). Less than half of RSOs surveyed had ever held a public forum or conversation related to diversity. 

Wright acknowledged that a number of groups showed dedication and critical self-reflection in their responses, but overall, the discrepancy compelled them to create a document of required reading rather than one of suggestion. 

“Instead of ‘this is a helpful guide,’ it was more of a ‘read this!’” she said. 

The work of Black students, specifically Black women, cannot be overlooked. Wright and Bonds, as well as I.A. and a number of other student organisers and activists, have continued to pour time and effort into these initiatives that constantly remind them of the injustice they face themselves. They do so while balancing their personal lives and educational and extracurricular commitments as well. While these student activists agree that this work is crucial, the emotional and mental toll is inevitable. It is here that the concept of solidarity plays such an important role in how the Black Lives Matter movement at William and Mary moves forward. 

“Solidarity looks like collaboration,” Bonds said. “Knowing what an organisation stands for, knowing what you want to see and collaborate with them for, talking with an organisation and asking ‘What are our values? Where do they intersect? What event can we present to the campus?’ even though you are on different parts of the spectrum in the campus community entirely.” 

Along with collaboration, Wright and Bonds also cite accountability and presence as important aspects of solidarity. 

“If you look at the letter, it also includes having that reporting process for discriminatory action,” Wright said. “Not just saying ‘We will denounce this and these practices,’ but also ‘We will do something about it. We will not stay silent.’ Because I think that does just as much harm. It doesn’t matter if you say ‘Oh, we don’t believe in that,’ if you don’t do something to help stop it. If you let something happen before your eyes, you might as well be participating in it.”

MCOs that exist as spaces for marginalised students, but are not necessarily centered around Black experiences, have found ways to incorporate collaboration, accountability, and presence into their programming and communication. 

The Solidarity Series is a series of informational sessions meant to engage and educate the campus community on a number of topics related to systemic racism in the United States with emphasis on the roles that the Asian American community has played in its history. A collaboration between the Filipino American Student Association (FASA), Asian American Student Initiative (AASI), and the Center for Student Diversity (CSD), the Solidarity Series has covered topics such as the model minority concept, affirmative action, colourism, institutionalised racism and non-white students’sense of belonging at a PWI. 

“There was this reaction, I think out of everyone, but specifically out of some of our members that there was a necessary conversation to have on campus,” Sidney Miralao ‘21, who is the treasurer on the FASA executive board, said. “Something that’s talked a lot about is Asian Americans and their complicity in racism and anti-Blackness. We felt that on this campus, which is a PWI, there is a clear divide between white students and students of color sometimes, and because of this we felt there was a conversation that needed to be led by students because we felt like the administration’s response to Black Lives Matter, especially their initial one, was pretty inadequate and not really addressing the institution’s role or the broader implications.” 

As an MCO, FASA has tried to break with the expectations of culture-centered student organisations to remain apolitical. In fact, they’ve made as many efforts as they can to advocate for issues that affect Filipino Americans as well as their marginalised peers, especially with regards to Black Lives Matter. 

“I think a lot of multicultural organisations sometimes say ‘we’re apolitical, we’re nonpartisan, and we are just purely social organisations, so we don’t really get involved with stuff like this,’” Saniya Han ‘23, FASA public relations co-chair said. “But we wanted to be loud. We wanted to show support. We wanted to show solidarity. We wanted to do more and not just be performative. We wanted to take action.” 

Cultural or political affiliations aside, many Asian American students at the College have acknowledged Asian American complicity in anti-Blackness and have tried to counter these past injustices. 

“One of the first things that came up in our discussions was standing in solidarity with the Black community and doing what we can,” Jamelah Jacob ‘21, APIA studies chair for the Asian American Student Initiative (AASI), said. “I think something that really stood out from these early conversations is that we recognise that as non-black POC was needed to take a step back and not co-opt any spaces or overstep, overshare, anything like that, so we had to be really deliberate in terms of what we wanted to do in terms of activism and direction.” 

Within the solidarity movement of non-Black student organisations is the component of accountability as well. While MCOs and other identity organisations have shown their support by standing up for Black students, they are having tough conversations about anti-Blackness within their communities. MCOs recognise that they represent marginalised and minority groups on campus while simultaneously acknowledging their privilege of being non-Black POC. Every community has its own anti-Blackness and privilege issues, and each MCO has addressed these matters in their own ways.

“A long-term goal of ours is creating a culture within our organisation to be able to talk to one another about difficult subjects,” said Alexia Kaelber ‘21, LASU co-president. “One of the conversations we had is what abolishment and defunding of the police look like and being able to educate one another about the true origins of the police force, what that means, and why abolishment might be the best option, especially for the Black community. We’ve had these difficult conversations with our members.” 

Sept. 25, the Instagram account dear.wm, which receives and shares anonymous accounts of discrimination of all forms at the College, posted an anonymous student’s discontent with the white Hispanic/Latine community on campus. While the post did not address the Latin American Student Union (LASU) directly, the organisation felt obligated to respond and reaffirm their commitment to their marginalised members and actively being anti-racist. 

“We scheduled three meetings back-to-back. We wanted to make sure everyone understood that this was not ok,” Megumi Matsuda-Rivero ‘22, vice president of LASU, said. “We felt like we had an obligation to respond even though we’re not the only Latinx organisation on campus, and we can’t speak for every Latinx individual, but as a part of that community, we felt the need to respond.”

The LASU executive board wanted to ensure that their organisation was a safe space for all Latine community members at the College. 

“It’s a major goal of ours to be inclusive, and it sucks to know that people haven’t had the ideal experience that we would want them to have,” Kaelber said. “I’ve had such a great experience [with LASU] that I would only want other people to have that as well.”

Another MCO striving to have these difficult conversations is the South Asian Student Association (SASA). The SASA executive board had initially planned to use the national moment to integrate conversations of solidarity and inclusion through discussions of the caste system, among others, which led to their co-opting of the Solidarity Series. They held a two-part series in collaboration with AASI and FASA to discuss the caste system and its relation to the South Asian community and anti-Blackness. 

“You can’t celebrate your culture without also addressing the bad things, you know?” Sreya Mallipeddi ‘23, a SASA public relations co-chair, said. “I don’t think it’s fair to say, ‘Oh, we just want to celebrate our heritage’ especially if your heritage is violent and especially if your heritage has this history of oppression. You can’t just ignore that.” 

Ultimately, the reality is  that while the College is a PWI, it is still home to a great number of diverse community members at every intersection of race, ethnicity, gender identity, and cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. As a result, the solidarity movement cannot move forward without considering the overlap that exists between all of these factors. The coalition that has formed around MCOs and other identity organisations at the College is promising, but it  must also consider the importance of intersectionality in all of its efforts. 

“The way that intersectionality changes the work that I do is that I take everything personally,” I.A. said. “When there’s an omission of BIPOC in the room, or programming lacks diverse speakers, we don’t have LGBTQ+ voices. I am constantly trying to see how we can bring more diverse voices into any of the events we have, the lectures that we have, the speakers that we bring in.” 

With regard to bringing in voices, I.A. emphasised the importance and the impact that diversity can have in the campus community. She believes that ultimately, decisions like these are what will affect change in the community one day. 

“I never see — or very rarely see — Black people in positions of power,” she said. “Imagine that you literally do not see teachers that have looked like you, professors that have looked like you, you don’t see people on television who talk about important things look like you, you don’t see anyone in movies or in the classroom or in government that look like you. The only time that you do is when you see representation that is violent. You see Black bodies, African children in pictures that your friends took on a mission trip they went on.”

In addition to solidarity, she adds that at the most basic level, diversity in leadership can allow  a marginalised student to enjoy a sense of belonging that they might not have ever had the privilege to experience before. Sometimes, this sense of belonging can make all of the difference in a college student’s experience. This culture change could eventually lead to more significant changes that Black students and their allies advocate for on campus. It is this shared sense of belonging and commitment to solidarity that has allowed all of these organisations to come together to support the Black Lives Matter movement.  

“Imagine how liberating it would be if you were in a cool social organisation that you liked and someone on the executive board looked like you and had experiences like yours,” I.A. said “I really want to highlight the actual feeling of belonging that can come from knowing someone that shares your experience, this really important experience, is in a position of power and leading things. That is so, so important.”