Tag Archives: Racism

Parles-tu français ?

Parles-tu français ? !” “Mais oui, je parle français !” Every time I open my mouth to utter a few words in French, this is the reaction. It’s always been important to me to communicate not only in English but in other languages that were not mine from birth. My mother tongue is English, but I often find myself teetering between “proper” English and Geechee, a language spoken in South Carolina and Georgia by descendants of slaves. My identity is based largely on the languages I speak and the ways in which I interpret different cultures. Through these languages, I connect with the world around me, my family and culture, and I challenge myself linguistically when possible. French has encompassed all three of these aspects, but to better explain the role of French in my life, I need to go back to my roots.

Since my family is from the South, my parents have tried their hardest to keep our connections to our past alive. My mother is from South Carolina while my father is from Georgia and they both have families that speak Geechee, a language developed by slaves brought over during the Middle Passage. Geechee meant that the slaves were connected, that the White man could not take everything away from my people. At first, I was ashamed to speak this language, but as I have grown older, I have learned the importance of this language and the importance of not being proper or “speaking White”. Through my journey to embrace Geechee, I have gained the ability to code-switch, the practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation, depending on my surroundings. I use it as a way to protect the most vulnerable part of me: my familial roots. Remembrance is key in the Black family, especially when society tries to say otherwise. I honor the family members who have gone before me through our language, through our perseverance. This perseverance has added to my determination to become proficient in another language: French.

When I reached the ripe age of five, my world started to change in terms of language: I was now beginning to learn not only English but French as well. At the private school I attended, I chose French because my older sister was also learning French in school and my grandmother spoke some at home. I began learning simple phrases like “hello,” “goodbye,” and “my name is.” I did not know it at that moment, but this language would change my life and put me on a path marked by travel and self-discovery.

In seventh grade, I moved from my tiny Catholic school to an independent school where I somehow made it into the advanced French class that prepared students for Honors and AP levels in high school. This was the first time I was thoroughly challenged in class. I remember arriving with my palms sweaty and my legs unwilling to carry me. I knew that most of these kids had been speaking French for the same amount of time I had, but for some reason, it seemed as if they could speak more eloquently and could understand everything the teacher said. I soon realized that other students had tutors or had parents who were from France and spoke the language at home. I felt as if I had hit a plateau in terms of my learning. Somehow I made it through that class and went on to study French in high school.

My first two years of high school were even harder. I can think of countless occasions when teachers belittled the work I had turned in, my test performance, or my uncertain responses in class. To say I was discouraged is an understatement. I can still recall a day in my junior year when my French teacher handed back my test on the subjunctive and said, in front of the rest of the class, “You probably don’t want to look at that now,” as she rolled her eyes. I am not sure if my teacher thought I was incapable of learning French because of my race – which would not have been an unusual reaction at my school – or if she did not believe I belonged in her class because my level of understanding may have been lower. Due to the backhanded comments from my teachers, I vowed to continue speaking French in college and to possibly even major in the language. As I reflect on my time in Montclair Kimberley Academy’s French classrooms, I believe that my teachers’ refusal to invest in my academics as they did for other students who had French tutors while I learned on my own, is the reason I pushed myself to continue learning French at Smith.

My first college French course was Madame Métral’s French 220: High Intermediate French. It was the first time I felt as if I could keep up with the rest of the class and could make mistakes without being ridiculed. When I walked into class, I was not paralyzed with anxiety to the point where I could not utter a single word. It was the first time I could see myself benefitting from the language and its instruction. Although I had been learning French for over ten years, it finally clicked in that first college class. French began to roll off my tongue with an ease I had never experienced. I began to think and dream in French when school was not even in session. I had finally unlocked a hidden part of myself. I could finally be myself not only in English but French as well.

“Mayotte Capécia: Reprendre l’identité de la femme martiniquaise de Frantz Fanon” is the research project that I had the chance to conduct through the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship during my last two years at Smith. I used this project as a way to find out more about people who look like me and eloquently write their histories in the French language. Not only did I feel seen by their works, I also felt as if I finally belonged in the French language. Through my research project, I began to understand that French is not solely for the White philosophers that I was made to think represented the entirety of French literature. French clicked for me at this point because I finally saw myself and understood what writers like Frantz Fanon and Mayotte Capécia were trying to articulate because it was also my struggle in America. The way I honored my ancestors through Geechee is the same way Capécia and Fanon used French and Creole in Martinique.

Trials and tribulations seem to be part of the narrative for people like me. People who are not meant to be in White, intellectual spaces but somehow still persevere. People who are meant to meet adversity but somehow do not let it break them. This is the narrative of my people, the Geechee. This is the story of other Black students who are told they cannot accomplish anything in academia but prevail by any means necessary. So, when someone asks if I speak French, I proudly answer that I do.

Kimani Freeman is a recent graduate from Smith where they studied French and Sociology. At Smith, Kimani had the chance to create their own research project through the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, which helps foster diversity in academia. For the next two years, Kimani will be teaching seventh grade English/Humanities in Springfield, Massachusetts, through Teach For America. They hope to continue their love for the French language well after undergrad.

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Shifting the Perspective: From Host to Guest

“But what do you want over there? Why do you think you have to be there in order to ‘find yourself’ ?” 

This was an initial response by one of my friends in 2015 when I told him that I wanted to go abroad for one or two semesters. At that point, I didn’t even know about Smith or Northampton, I just had this  adventurous idea and a dream. Yet being the first one in my family, and one of two people in my immediate circle of friends to plan on attending university, every topic that was even remotely related to it was treated with a sense of distrust and skepticism by most of those in my close environment.

However, actually going abroad shouldn’t have been that exotic and outlandish for them since they all knew my friend Kelly, who, coming from New York City, had lived with me and my family in Germany for about six months as part of her internship in Hamburg. Having Kelly living with us added a layer of realism to the prevalent image most people have—myself  included—of the United States: Hollywood, McDonald’s, patriotism, the first Black president, Miss Liberty, the greatest economic superpower. (Some elderly people might have added Texas, the Grand Canyon, and ranches to that list of typical “American” associations.) For me as the host, I hadn’t needed to adjust a lot. I loved speaking English with Kelly, no matter how often I was told that she had to practice her German with me. I learned new things and also formed a great friendship, which encouraged my dream to somehow make it across the pond in order to get my own impression of her country.

Fast-forward two years: I enrolled at Universität Hamburg with a British and American language and literature major, the Black Lives Matter movement was in full swing, America elected the angry orange president and I somehow earned a scholarship and a place in the AMS graduate program at Smith College. My teachers told me that I had picked such an “interesting” and “exciting” time to visit the US, to which I responded with a smile, thinking how much “ fun” it would be to visit America during this chapter of openly-expressed white supremacy, misogyny and racism. I knew that in America, it was of greater importance that Kelly was African-American, and that I now had to face issues of race and identity that differed from home.

It would be my first time visiting the US, travelling alone, and being away from home for so long. I was curious to explore the USA from the inside, and to see the apparently opposing realities and worldviews Americans held. Moreover, I was interested to see what would happen to me as an individual, being somewhat isolated from family, friends, and the cultural and political environment in which I was raised. But with the current tensions, I was also worried: how would I be perceived as an alien, a woman, a German? What would be the appropriate behavior to deal with racism as an outsider? And as I approached my departure, what would it mean to be labeled as “White” in the US without the identifier “American” coming after it?

I have to disappoint the reader by remarking that I am not yet able  to provide answers at this point of my journey. I just shifted my perspective: being born and raised in Germany without an immigrant background, I used to be the host, not only to Kelly but to millions of people, who had at some point left their country of origin. But now I am a guest on American soil. I’m not an immigrant. My role is the one of a temporary resident, who has “the privilege of not being immediately recognized as such,” as Kelly once put it (at least until I opened my mouth to speak ). But I do realize that the color of my skin and my gender have an impact on how people treat me over here, something I haven’t really experienced at home. Often, I feel more vulnerable and sometimes, simply lost. But overall, I remain curious and I’m determined to find some answers and insights to these issues of identity.

 

Born and raised in Hamburg, Germany as the youngest of four children, Lucy became infamous for talking too much and always writing “the next J.K. Rowling book” whenever there was a writing task in class. Studying abroad at Smith for a year as part of her American Language and Literature major, she takes every chance to pursue her great passions: Writing, movies and chocolate.

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Waiting for the Train

Could telling my story and finding the right metaphor be the bridge connecting the differences I experienced  living and studying  in  two very different cultures ?

 

 

Cassiopeia Lee ’17 is a graduating senior with no immediate plans and a general love for learning and exploring. At Smith she cultivated her passions for languages, human rights, justice, and global perspectives, and knows that she’ll only learn more in her future endeavors.

 

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Bridging the Gap: Discussing Race in Chinese

How do you explain race and the weight it carries in a language that lacks racial terminology? How do you communicate your racial experience when your level of fluency isn’t high enough?

My first conversation in Chinese about race took place sitting on my friend’s bed while we peeled and ate pomegranates with her Chinese roommate. At that point, we had been in Hangzhou for about three weeks and were still struggling to articulate coherent statements in Chinese on a regular basis. I was telling my friend about how my roommate had only recently discovered that I am Black. Her roommate overheard us and exclaimed: “You’re a black person?! But you’re so white!”

Photo taken while I was on a hunt for a bookstore near the campus of Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou, China.
Photo taken while I was on a hunt for a bookstore near the campus of Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou, China.

In Chinese, there is no word for “tan,” “beige,” or “light-skinned.” You are either “白 (white)” which means very fair in color, or you are “黑 (black)” which can be even the slightest shade of tan. During my spring semester in Hangzhou, one of the Chinese roommates was nicknamed “Little Black” because he was tanner than all of them. Yet oddly enough, to be considered an actual Black person you have to be very, very dark-skinned.

In my very fragmented language, I tried to explain that Black people come in all sorts of shades and have a wide range of different physical characteristics. The disbelief on her face prompted me to show her a family portrait. Upon seeing my parents, she still insisted I was the palest among them. She seemed to be trying to comfort me. Her behavior indicated she did not want me to call myself “dark,”most likely because in the eyes of China’s beauty standards, it would be similar to calling myself “ugly.”

She then asked me: in African-American culture, is it better to be lighter or darker? The question made a gross discomfort rise within me. During times of slavery, lighter-skinned slaves were “treated better” and allowed in the master’s house. This elevation of lighter-skinned Blacks and superficial level of acceptance created tensions within the community that still exist today, particularly among Black women. For example, Kanye West made a casting call for only “multiracial-looking women.” Another example is the stereotype that all light-skinned girls are stuck-up. It is because of issues of colorism that growing up I always felt unaccepted and detached from other Black girls my age. But in the eyes of my friend’s roommate, color is only a “beauty choice.” I felt myself struggling to answer. Is there a word for “colorism” in Chinese? How do I explain that Eurocentric beauty standards are a part of Black women’s oppression, both in the United States and globally?

Although my language didn’t help the situation at the time, I later discovered that racial language is almost nonexistent in China. Why wouldn’t it be? Most people in China do not see a foreigner, or even someone who looks racially different from them, their entire lives. In comparison, America is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world, and therefore our language developed the ability to describe, explain and define racial experience.

I also came to understand that race is perceived differently in China. Without a doubt, racism exists in China, but it is different from America’s particular brand of it. In Chinese culture, for example, the nickname “Little Black,” although highly problematic in American culture, is just a term of endearment and a lighthearted way to describe someone’s appearance. Another Chinese roommate was nicknamed “Little Fat” because he was slightly more overweight than everyone else. In China, if your skin looks dry or you’ve lost weight, people will comment on it. There is not as much sensitivity towards discussion of appearance in their culture. That said, in China, there is a hierarchy of how foreigners are treated and White people are clearly at the top.

Towards the end of my study abroad in China, I had to give a presentation to a class of forty students at another Chinese university. Since I was the only student who had been in the program for a year, my teacher thought it would be a good idea for me to share my experiences with  the class. Although I felt a bit scared, I decided I would discuss how I experienced life as a light-skinned Black person in China. I wanted to try again to explain race and microaggressions in Chinese, but I didn’t want to make it seem as if I were attacking China or Chinese culture. So I made this section of my speech humorous. I didn’t use any complicated language or try to look up any special terms. Using only the fluency I had, I tried my best to simply poke fun at the absurdity of some of the situations I’d been in.

The students ended up really enjoying my presentation and laughed at all of my jokes! I was so worried it would be awkward, or that I wouldn’t be able to explain things correctly. However, the audience welcomed the casualness of my speech and my use of popular slang. I’m not sure if any of the students took away anything more than a couple of laughs from my presentation, but regardless, I definitely felt better finally being able to put everything I’d experienced  out in the open. I also learned humor is a language everyone can understand.

 

Kayla GaskinKayla Gaskin is a creative-writing, music loving, big boots wearing multiethnic black Aquarius with an addiction to sweets and Buzzfeed videos. She has traipsed all over Southern China & Taiwan, and since become a travel and adventure enthusiast. Her major is East Asian Languages & Literatures with a translation studies concentration – and although she is not quite sure yet what path she wants to walk…her hope is to continue spreading cultural awareness and helping others in whatever way she can.

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