Nikki Greene, an assistant professor of the arts of Africa and the African diaspora at Wellesley College, published a blog post on Sunday titled “Eating Ice Cream While Black (Or My Life In Wellesley, Mass)” in which she gives her perspective on the recent revelations of alleged racial and ethnic harassment involving Wellesley High students.
Greene writes in part that “these sort of disturbing, violent stereotypes” depicted in the students’ Facebook Messenger posts at the center of the controversy “constitute the underbelly of microaggressions in the town.” By microaggressions, she refers to the more subtle forms of racism exhibited in such incidents as the one in the title of her post.
The Wellesley resident, who has lived here with her family since 2011, writes that she was heartened by the solidarity gathering organized by the World of Wellesley last week, but awaits seeing how the police and public school administration handle things from here.
I observed a similar situation on a bus recently. A young black woman with a baby asked to sit in the seat next to an older white woman. I am also an older white woman,70, raised in Ct by southern parents.
The older woman asked to take photos of the baby. The mother agreed. It went on for a while. It was very uncomfortable and I thought it crossed the bounds of respect. Wanting to say something but not knowing what to say or if I was overreacting, I did not.
Thanks for speaking up.
I wanted to thank professor Greene for sharing her personal experiences on this issue in her book. I’m frustrated though with people’s surprise that this would happen in all places, Wellesley!!! I’m no expert, but what I disagree on is that this specific issue is an example of microaggressions. This was an overt attack on this family this is a part of an entitled mentality by children or in this case young adults that is either learned at home or goes unchecked by the adults in their lives. Wellesley focuses a lot of time on the academic performance and the success of their children and not nearly enough time on human relations and TRULY understanding and accepting differences. I give the parents and children of this family the utmost respect for standing up and addressing this issue with grace and dignity!!!! There are people in Wellesley that truly care, are open-minded, seek equality and are aware that these issues exist even in their community. I’m tired of the “posers” and the people that are too busy building their empire and going to hot yoga to take an interest or in this case concern over what their kids are doing at school or on social media.