Public Service Announcement

There are black people at Harvard. Hundreds of black people, actually. And we're normal students.

While for many of you, I'm sure this isn't new information, it's becoming increasingly obvious that in some cases, people are quite unaware. Since my arrival on this campus last year, a number of fascinating yet saddening stories suggesting this problem have fallen into my lap. Just to name a few:

One night, a young black Harvard man was sitting quietly on the steps of his freshman dorm, perhaps reflecting on concepts presented in his Government lecture or engaged in some other intellectual pursuit. A resident of said dorm who saw him from upstairs promptly called the police to come investigate what was apparently a situation fraught with the appearance of imminent danger.

In an unrelated incident, another young black Harvard man was walking down the street when a young woman walking several feet ahead of him turned, looked in his direction, and suddenly took off running. Assuming that something or someone harmful mustve been behind him to cause such a reaction in the young woman, the young man instinctively took off running as well. Only upon turning his head, mid-flight, and seeing that there was, in fact, no one there, did the young man deduce that his fellow Harvard classmate was running from none other than him.

While those two instances alone might well have provided enough food for thought, I'm compelled to share my personal favorite, which actually took place in recent weeks. A black upperclassman was in the Yard visiting a friend in Canaday. Due to Harvard's lack of universal swipe access, he was unable to get into the building, and so politely asked a passerby to swipe him in, showing her his Harvard ID card in the process.

The passerby denied him entry based on her "best judgment," then proceeded to run screaming in the other direction.

These unfortunate incidents, and others like them, are symptomatic of a larger problem one would think wouldn't exist at Harvard in 2005. The sort of stereotypical thinking that leads to such irrational responses to contact with black people is the same motivation behind the creation of organizational nicknames, like Angry Black Harvard Women (in place of Association for Black Harvard Women, or ABHW), and—to a lesser extent—alleged self-segregating tendencies. Granted, people come from a variety of backgrounds and may have limited experience with those unlike them, and therefore may thus far have been depending on unreliable sources like the media to frame their impression of black people. But at Harvard, with the abundance of resources at students' fingertips to address racial issues—ABHW, Black Students Association (BSA), Black Mens Forum (BMF), The Harvard Foundation—there's no need and no excuse for this type of ignorance, stereotyping and paranoia.

All black men arent violent criminals, the primary activity of black women—this piece excluded—isnt to angrily rant about things that bother us, and all black people on this campus do not know and associate exclusively with each other. People here, and everywhere, need to divest themselves of these stereotypes they're holding onto about young black people. Everyone can start by first turning down the radio, shutting off the TV, and coming out to a BMF meeting, ABHW meeting, or wherever youll feel most comfortable. There won't be a set of black men aggressively approaching and robbing you at a BMF meeting, and you won't walk into an ABHW meeting to find hysterical black women screaming at one another and eager to bite your head off. The sooner people stop being intimidated and learn to use these organizations to adjust their racial comfort zones and break out of stereotypical thinking, the sooner my friends can stop coming to me with those annoying stories, and we can all start behaving like the educated, worldly people we all are.

Ashton R. Lattimore 08, a Crimson editorial editor, is a English concentrator in Dunster House.