African-American students search to find a niche beyond the confines of racial myths
By Kiflin Turner
News Writer
Patrick Parks was a little surprised when one of his dormmates thought he played football.
That's because he's short.
But Parks, a senior African-American student at Notre Dame, frequently gets mistaken for an athlete because of his skin color. Parks' dark skin is frequently a signal to other students that he's an athlete — but he's not.
"[My dormmate] just assumed that because I was black, I played football," Parks said, adding that his size should have been a consideration, but was overshadowed by his skin color.
Racial profiling of minority students is a disturbing everyday occurrence where minority students are categorized as being athletes or intellectually inferior.
"Sometimes there's a lot of talk that only people who are black are characterized as automatically student athletes and that's not necessarily true," said Susan Creary, a sophomore African-American student.
Racial profiling of African-American students as athletes is a major misconception that is an obstacle for minority students' acceptance in the Notre Dame community.
"There's definitely room for improvement, there's always that stereotype of all African-Americans on campus being athletes, and unfortunately a lot of the times it holds true because a lot of them are athletes," said Thomas Gilbert, a biracial walk-on member of the track and field team.
Mistaken Identity
Gilbert's experience is familiar to other minority students. Sophomore Justin Ruiz is no stranger to racial discrimination in his dorm and in the classroom.
Ruiz recalled one incident where a resident in his dorm repeatedly hesitates to speak with him, regardless of Ruiz's efforts to initiate friendly conversation.
"I'll say hi to him and he won't say anything back — and I don't know if he's intimidated or I don't know if he's [not] used to people of color," said Ruiz.
The same situation also occurs elsewhere on campus, Ruiz said.
"For the most part, people say hello back, but sometimes they just kind of shrug their shoulders and keep on walking," Ruiz said.
In the classroom setting, many African-American students are singled out because of their race, and expected to be "the voice" for the community. This often puts many students in an uncomfortable learning environment where their individual experiences are often misunderstood as the majority opinion.
This can cause many minority students to feel self-conscious in the classroom and prevent them from actively participating in classroom discussions. Some students even feel singled out because of their race, and labeled as intellectually inferior. While some of the stereotyping comes from professors, in actuality, most of it comes from his fellow classmates.
"I do feel uncomfortable in certain classes where I'm the only minority and everybody looks at me. When I speak everyone listens — It's like `Oh the minority is speaking, everybody listen,'" said Ruiz.
One of the obstacles to combating these incidents is they frequently go unreported and unnoticed by the majority of students at Notre Dame.
"There are daily occurrences that happen many of which we don't hear about in the dorm [and] in the classroom that still makes it very clear to me that we have a lot of work to do," said Iris Outlaw Director of Multicultural Student Programs and Services (MSPS). "Students who are historical minorities continue to struggle with being in predominately majority communities," said Outlaw.
While Outlaw said most minorities are strong enough to survive and to break through the barriers of daily prejudices, some students are not. Negative experiences that penetrate the African-American community are not only harmful to currently enrolled minority students, but may deter potential prospects from attending the University. If current minority students are not happy with their experience, they are likely to communicate those negative experiences to prospective students.
"The tenor is changing," said Chandra Johnson, co-chair of the University recruitment and retention committee. "But the reason that it is so difficult at this point in time is because sometimes [African-Americans] expect the University to do our recruiting —how students come is by word of mouth from those who have gone here.
"Those of us who are African Americans who are alumni here are not recruiting. There are some who are and who work very hard at it, but there is a lot more that needs to be done. And until the experience is enhanced, then it's difficult to even invite people to want to follow after us," said Johnson.
Struggling to Stay
The University may find it difficult to recruit when many African-American students are leaving the University after enrolling freshman year.
The number of African-American students who leave after sophomore year is alarming to some University officials who say that financial strain and academics may be key proponents in low student return rates rather than social maladjustment problems. In a given year, up to 16 percent of African-American students leave the University before the start of the junior year, while up to 4 percent of majority students leave the University.
"Sometimes students come to Notre Dame and their financial aid packages change and some of them get overwhelmed with a cost that they just can't pay," said Outlaw.
Another reason that may contribute to students not returning is the breadth of academic progress.
"For some students of color their first year is really their roughest year and it's not a reflection of their intelligence," Outlaw said. "When they come here they may not have a strong enough background for some of the courses that all first year [students] have to take."
While Outlaw cited financial and academic difficulties as the major reasons that lead up to a student's discontinuation of their education at Notre Dame, Outlaw said the feeling of isolation is another factor.
"Sometimes students in historical minorities are caught between which group to be a part of," Outlaw said. "What happens is when they don't form a community around themselves, the isolation factor is so deep and so inculcated that it affects everything — G.P.A., one's ability to concentrate, one's ability to be sociable, one's ability to just exist," said Outlaw.
Making the Experience Worthwhile
While some experiences demonstrate racial discrimination is apparent on campus, other African-American students feel the climate at Notre Dame is accepting. Sophomore Nikki McCord, a member of the University committee for retention and recruitment, said her experiences were generally positive.
"I like the climate here on campus, and the main reason is because I have been able to get involved in different types of activities," said McCord.
By initiating contact with all students, regardless of race, McCord said that the Notre Dame experience is dependent on the actions a student takes to build their own personal experiences.
"One thing that separates Notre Dame from any other school is the people that we accept — and we accept very educated, broad-minded people," McCord said. "Because of that, I think that helps people to be accepting of different cultures and different ethnicities."
Finding visible African-American role models on campus can be problematic for students seeking to identify with others in their racial group. A recent trend of minority leadership on Notre Dame's campus is beginning to provide more role models for African-American students.
Because African-American students in the community have other prominent figures who they can relate to like leprechaun Michael Brown, Steven Smith, president of the glee club, and Tambre Paster, a drum major in the Notre Dame marching band, Johnson thinks that more African-American students will consider applying to Notre Dame because of this leadership trend.
"We've had some wonderful icons at the University and prospects are going to go up," said Johnson.
The overall percentage of African-Americans remains at a low 3.2 percent, and minority students struggle to find others who share similar interests and experiences.
"I wish [there] were more African-American people here, but I don't know if it's just not a lot of African-Americans applying here to get in, or if the University is not accepting them because their credentials aren't good enough," said Charles Thomas, an African-American player on the men's basketball team. "I think [there] could be more here, but I don't know what they could do to increase it."
Recent efforts have been made to create a more open environment for African-Americans on campus. These efforts will hopefully take steps to improve minority visibility and to make the campus climate more accepting.
In the last three years the University has made an institutional mandate to establish programs to facilitate the development of African-American cultural identity and increase the number of role models and icons. The development of various programs shows that the University is taking measures to expand the minority community at Notre Dame.
"Within the last three years the University has grown in leaps and bounds to make it an institutional mandate in perceptions," said Johnson.
Another change is the institution of a mandatory diversity education program. The program, offered by the office of student affairs to freshmen is a peer coordinated program that promotes discussion on the cultural diverse aspects of the University.
Programs such as these generate an open dialogue between not only minority students, but also all students on campus. The first two years of this program have been successful, Outlaw said.
"I think right now for the fact that for two years now we've had a mandatory diversity workshop that all first year students have to attend is another step forward in trying to provide a welcoming environment for not only under-represented groups, and students of color, but essentially for those students who possibly may be gay or lesbian," said Outlaw.
For students like Parks, the experience of racial tension on campus is an opportunity to bring about discussion and change. As a result of an anthropology grant, Parks is studying minority educational inequality in predominantly white post-secondary institutions like Notre Dame.
"When I got to the heart of things, it was basically about my experience at Notre Dame," said Parks. "I can say I have had an equal amount of both positive and negative [experiences], but the intensity that I have experienced the negative propelled me to help others."
All News Stories for Thursday, January 25, 2001
