To Beni Snow, who authored a recent piece defending the Christakises, and anyone else who conflates racism and a culture of anti-Blackness with “freedom of speech.”
When we justify racially offensive remarks, Halloween costumes and actions with “freedom of speech” in universities, we invoke the fatal flaw of conflating First Amendment rights with what should be considered “freedom of thought.” We also ignore the hard truth that much of what we attempt to protect under this guise is racist, and for students of color, it feels like hate speech. This is true at the University, but also for the broader conversation about what is considered inappropriate and offensive language and behavior.
Freedom of speech, as we understand it from the United States Constitution, simply does not apply to students on the lush campuses of private universities. There are rules and regulations that keep students from, say, protesting in the classroom while a professor is lecturing, even if said professor is a bigot. The invocation of “free speech” on private campuses like Yale’s is simply false because our Constitutional rights do not apply in the same way that they would in a public space like a coffee shop or movie theater.
It is also a big mistake to use language from the Constitution to reprimand people the Constitution was not even written for. Not only do we not have freedom of speech, but students of color, particularly Black students, have little incentive to allow ourselves to be pacified with an argument based on a constitution that was drafted when African American people were enslaved — the Constitution was not written with people of color in mind. When it was drafted, my people were toiling to build this country with their own blood and tears and were treated like livestock — or worse. By telling us the Constitution states that people in the United States should be able to say whatever they want to say, you are willfully ignoring the history from which our people came and the ways that this history lingers in today’s institutions — academic and otherwise. Thus, defending racist behaviors (like dressing up as a particular race or culture, or more overtly, shouting racial slurs) with “freedom of speech” is fallacious and frustratingly false.
But here is where even Snow’s call for freedom of intellectual thought ignores the essential historical and contemporary context of race in the United States: if your freedom of thought means that I, a Black student, do not have the luxury of feeling safe on a campus that I have worked my entire life to get to, it should have no place in universities or any other beloved institution. White privilege means that there is no way for people of color to wear Halloween costumes that play into the stereotypical images of white people — because white people benefit from having a variety of images of themselves. It means that white people can go into any costume store and find costumes (likely created by other insensitive white people) that mock people of color. But when people of color dress up as white people, it typically involves princess costumes with flowing blonde wigs that don’t resemble their hair because desirable images of themselves are few and far between. And that does not stop at costume choices. There is no true “freedom” of thought or speech when one group has historical, political, social and socioeconomic leverage over the other.
Snow and many others who share his beliefs on this issue cloak racism in a flowery phrase, calling it “diversity of thought.” He says people of color who call for “diversity” should remember that listening to all points of view, especially in universities, is essential. Yet Snow forgets that even the word “diversity” is for white people, as a numbers game to make themselves feel like noble citizens and pacify people of color who desire representation and inclusion. A genuine desire for diversity cannot come without the historical context of why diversity and inclusion is necessary in the first place.
Snow says, on what he calls “censorship” in universities, “This censorship worries me far more than any racially or ethnically offensive expression ever will,” which prioritizes his (a cisgendered white male’s) worries about not being able to say what he wants or wear the Halloween costume he chooses over the very real need for students of color to feel safe on their campuses.
Beni, you, as a white person who benefits from (gasp!) white privilege, do not have to worry about many of the things students of color worry about on a daily basis, so your “worry” in this case is of miniscule value. Your peers do not tell you that you are only at Princeton because of affirmative action. People do not stop you on campus to ask you if you’re actually a student. You do not have the burden of being the only person with your racial background in a class in which a professor relies on you to do the impossible task of educating your peers on the beliefs of your entire race. White people have white privilege, which means their safety and feelings of belonging are not threatened in the way those of students of color are. Thus, your opinion on what students of color at Yale or any other institution ask of their peers and administration is moot. Beni,you simply lack the context you need in order to make the claim that freedom of thought should trump feeling safe at a school that doubles as your home.
I emphasize safety because what seems to be merely offensive to a person whose country affirms the value of his or her life can be threatening to a person who has daily reminders that he or she is worthless in the eyes of the law and that the academic institution he or she is part of was not built for him or her. In a country that was stolen and built on the dead bodies of Native Americans and with the blood and tears of African Americans and continues to degrade and disenfranchise all people of color, there is no Halloween costume funny or cute enough to come at the expense of people of color. In a country in which Black people are told daily how little our lives mean to this country, what is perceived as merely “offensive” are our reminders that, should you ever decide to act on (racist) beliefs that we perceive to be violent and hateful, there may not be justice for fallen Black bodies. Remember DylannRoof? This instance wasn’t on a college campus, but he exercised his freedom of speech by all but worshipping the Confederate flag and everything it represented. This country is a precarious place to live for people of color — so if your freedom of speech or thought seems racist, we cannot take it lightly. Our lives may be in danger, and our country has shown that it does not care about how many Black and brown bodies fall.
The notion that telling (white) college students not to mock students of color infantilizes students of color is almost laughable. As a university charged with educating all of its students, it is actually infantilizing to let white students graduate and go out into the world thinking it is acceptable to be bigots. You may be free to think and express what you want, but if those thoughts are rooted in xenophobia toward any marginalized group and lack an acknowledgement of your white privilege, you are not free from being perceived as racist and any consequences that may come from that perception.
Destiny Crockett is an english major from Saint Louis, Mo. She can be reached at datc@princeton.edu.
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