Abstract
From 2014-2016, the author of this article conducted 37 in-depth interviews with Black and Latina women who had graduated from a wealthy, predominantly White suburban high school in the Northeastern United States. The article explores the experiences of these students and the concept of being in the “wrong” place because of a perceived racial and geographic misalignment.
In July 2009, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, the eminent Harvard academic, was arrested outside of his multi-million-dollar home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for “trespassing.” In Elijah Anderson’s 2015 article entitled The White Space, Anderson begins by recalling an incident in which he was ordered to “go home,” while out for a morning run during a seaside vacation. Although neither of these incidents ended in physical violence, Trayvon Martin was not so fortunate. The 17-year old was shot and killed by a neighborhood watchman who thought Trayvon was some place where he didn’t belong. As Cohen outlines in her 2015 article, We Can’t Talk about Housing Policy without Talking about Racism, these examples speak to the ongoing racialization of space, or the way in which we associate certain geographic areas as “White” spaces or “Black” spaces, growing out of our long history of Jim Crow, red lining, and de facto residential segregation. Beyond just assuming where people “belong” based upon racial categorization, we make additional assumptions about racialized geographic areas, including how poor or violent or disordered such communities are.
When one is in the “wrong” place because of a perceived racial and geographic misalignment, the individual experiences that physical space in distinct ways from those who are perceived to belong there, with significant ramifications, including physical and psychological trauma, feelings of isolation, and limited access to resources. The data from this project suggest that such experiences and their consequences impact individuals regardless of social class, downplaying economics as the oft-used excuse for why specifically Black Americans are viewed as not belonging in a setting. These processes both reflect and reinforce ideas about race and geography, requiring us to consider critical individual, community, and societal-level changes.
From 2014 to 2016, I conducted 37 in-depth interviews with Black and Latina women who had graduated from a wealthy, predominantly White suburban high school in Mayfair (a pseudonym) in the Northeastern United States. The town of 30,000 residents is approximately 80 percent White, slightly more than 10 percent Asian, 3 percent Latinx, and less than 3 percent Black or African-American as of the 2010 Census. It has a median household income more than double the state. The town is home to multiple colleges and has historically voted for Democratic candidates at both the state and federal levels.
The public high school is unique in that it has participated in two forms of voluntary racial desegregation programs for over 50 years. The state-wide busing program is a public-private partnership and brings approximately 150 K-12 students into the community on a daily basis from a city approximately 15 miles away. The second program in which the town participates is a private, national program that places high-achieving, lower-income students of color in better-resourced public and private day and boarding schools around the country. In a small number of settings, the private program has established a boarding option at wealthy, academically challenging public high schools. Such is the case here.
The women interviewed in this project had accessed this particular school district through one of these three ways: as town residents attending their local public high school (n=10), as commuters from the nearby city of Urbana (a pseudonym) who accessed the district through the voluntary, state-wide busing program (n=15), or as boarding students from various parts of the country who participated in the national program (n=12). I wanted to better understand their individual experiences. Although in 2001, Eaton examined the experiences of Black students bused into predominantly White communities through a voluntary desegregation program and in 1991, Cookson and Persell explored the experiences of Black students in elite boarding schools, this project compares how points of access into a system influence student experience. After transcribing, verbatim, the recorded interviews, I thematically coded across all three groups and identified two major themes: “geographic misplacement” and “imagined geographies.”
Although a general theme around the racialization of space existed across interviews, variations appeared by point of entry. Mayfair residents were more likely to discuss experiences related to “geographic misplacement,” likely because assumptions that they were not in their home communities were incorrect, while such assumptions made about commuters and boarders, while resulting from racialized stereotypes, were correct. Commuters and boarders were more likely to retell experiences around “imagined geographies.”
In this article, the Black students who attended a mostly white high school described teachers assuming that they were a part of the boarding program for high-performing girls of color.
Gabby K, Pexels
Geographic Misplacement
Oh, that’s very nice of your mother to drive you all the way here.
Teachers, parents, and students racialized geography by seeing the town as White and the city as non-White. In this process, they placed Black and Latina students out of the dominant geographic frame, engaging in a process of “geographic misplacement.” Such experiences were most often cited by town residents who were being told that this was not their home.
Some women recalled White teachers and parents engaging in this form of othering under the guise of support or assistance. When Alexandra, a young Black woman, arrived late to school one morning and told her teacher that she had missed the bus, she recalls her teacher commenting, “‘Oh, that’s very nice of your mother to drive you all the way here.’“ Alexandra says it was clear the teacher thought she was from the city. Alexandra and Jade, another resident, both discuss how they were excused from required after-school study halls and detentions, with teachers assuming there was no late bus to return them to the city. While walking to the high school one day, Jade had a White parent stop and offer her rides to and from the train station. Veronica, a graphic designer who owns her own business, was very strong academically during her high school years and went on to graduate from a prestigious art institute. She describes teachers assuming that she was part of the boarding program, an initiative for high-performing girls of color. She described her responses to these assumptions, “I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, I’m glad I’m doing well, but I live here.’“
Other instances of such geographic misplacement are more extreme and violent. Faith, a middle-class Black resident, was put on the commuter bus as an elementary school student and sent “home” to Urbana. Members of the school community physically sent Faith to where they thought she belonged. Priscilla, a boarding student who graduated in the early 1990s and went on to earn a degree from an Ivy League university, recalls walking home freshman year, when a group of young White men drove past, one leaning out and screaming, “N-, go home,” recalling Elijah Anderson’s experience when out on his morning run. The boy assumed she was not and should not be from Mayfair. Darker skin tones symbolize a geographic foreign-ness to Whites in the community, a sign of where these young women do or do not belong.
Imagined Geographies
Commuter and boarding students generally spoke less about “geographic misplacement,” likely because they were not, in fact, from Mayfair, and more about stereotypes of their home communities, a process I call “imagined geographies.”
We’re not living in a ghetto, we’re not walking over grenades and stuff.
Yolanda and Sasha, two commuters, and Tamara and Malia, both boarders, recall exchanges with town residents, reflecting assumptions and stereotypes about urban Black communities. Yolanda, age 34 at the time of the interview, is a highly-successful college graduate who grew up in a middle-class household in the city and works in corporate philanthropy. Asked by her White classmates if she lived in the projects and knew drug dealers, she says, “We’re not living in a ghetto, we’re not walking over grenades and stuff.” Her response speaks to the assumptions among Whites of what city life looks like. Sasha, age 34 at the time of the interview, is a college graduate who works as a human resources executive. Like Yolanda, she was part of the commuter program, and similarly came from a middle-class family who owned their home. She remembers “someone said to me in the middle of, in front of everybody in class, ‘Oh, my gosh- you live in Dexter? I’d be so scared to live where you live that as soon as I walk out of my house I’d get shot.’“
Boarding students share similar experiences. Malia, age 21 and enrolled in an elite college at the time of the interview, was asked by White classmates if she ever saw someone get shot. Tamara, age 20, and also attending a highly elite university, says her White peers would ask her, “What happens in the city at night?” seeming to anticipate tales of violence and mayhem.
Women also discuss the assumptions of urban poverty that abound among White residents. Karenna, a 25-year-old college graduate working in the non-profit sector, attended the school as a boarder. Her mother was a nurse. She says, “That was something that I struggled with while being there and—and just kind of letting it be known that, ‘Yes, I come from the inner city but that doesn’t mean I’m poor or I need extra assistance.’“ Tamara, another boarder, said she was viewed as “some type of charity case,” because she was Black and from an urban area. Alana, the oldest participant in the study in her early fifties, who holds advanced degrees and works as a social worker, also experienced a collapsing of race, class, and geography. She talks about the middle-class neighborhood in which she grew up in the Midwest and says of town residents, “They thought we were so poor.”
Responding Through Explicit Education
Women use various tools to respond to these racialized geographic mindsets, with some explicitly working to dispel incorrect notions of what their home communities look like. In keeping with the 2012 research of Fleming, Lamont, and Welburn on responding to racial stigma, women in this study discuss explicit education in response to racial stereotypes. These attempts to confront and correct stereotypes of urban life most often come from commuters, as they are the ones who can show their White peers an accessible alternative, something not possible for residents who live in the town or for boarding students whose home communities are too geographically distant.
I invited the girls to my house and I know a lot of them came—or their parents made sure they came out of curiosity. And they were very shocked—because I remember Sally Jones, her mom stayed and had a long conversation—she just could not believe that my mom owned a triple decker in the city with a wonderful rose garden.
Serena, a 40-year-old accountant who was enrolled in college at the time of the interview, attended the school as a commuter. She grew up in subsidized housing in the city and speaks with frustration about her peers and their assumptions about urban life, “That’s why I always wanted people to come to my environment because Urbana’s not all poor...that was just kind of like the stereotype.” She says, “I tried to—instead of us always going out to Mayfair and staying out there, I invited Mayfair friends to come home. You know, I’ve been to where you live, I’ve seen your environment, I want you to get to know me and my environment... Noel, a 28-year-old teacher who grew up in a middle-class home and was also a commuter, responded similarly. She recalls hosting a sleepover, “I invited the girls to my house and I know a lot of them came—or their parents made sure they came out of curiosity. And they were very shocked- because I remember Sally Jones, her mom stayed and had a long conversation—she just could not believe that my mom owned a triple decker in the city with a wonderful rose garden.” Yolanda, the 34-year-old executive in corporate philanthropy, talks about the active role that her mother played in educating the White community about city life. Her mother was PTO president and organized a day for Mayfair residents to do a tour of city neighborhoods so that they could understand “it’s not as bad as you think.”
Responding Through “Good” Behavior
Other women respond to these racialized geographies implicitly, by working hard to overcome stereotypes and being the “model” student. These responses are reported by women across all three groups.
Hannah, a teacher and coach who grew up in Section 8 housing in Mayfair and was a star athlete, discusses her biggest contribution to the town. She says, “So I think having to see someone who is like them, but just a different color, probably, without even trying, clicked in their head that we’re the same. I am just brown, that’s all.” Faith, the middle-class resident enrolled in art school, makes a similar statement, “Before people always thought, ‘Oh, you have brown skin, you come from the city,’ Or, ‘You can’t be from here.’ And I feel like me—I was like an example of someone who can be your neighbor because I’m not different from you. It’s just skin color.” Faith is explicitly talking about breaking linkages between race and geography.
Andrea, Monique, Michelle, Yolanda, and Sasha, all commuter students, talk about counteracting beliefs about where students of color are from and what they are like. Andrea, age 33 and a college-educated accountant, talks about teaching the community that not all urban children are “problems,” and Monique, a 45-year-old college-educated travel professional, discusses correcting “perceptions” and “misconceptions” around race. Michelle, 43-years-old at the time of the interview and also a college-educated accountant, describes growing up in a “lower-income, working-class—not projects” environment. She was frequently assumed to be lower-income and had to fight against stereotypes about what it meant to be Black and from Urbana. She says of her classmates’ knowledge of city life, “They didn’t really understand—they knew like stereotypical [urban life].” When asked what her biggest contribution to the community was, Michelle says she provided, “an example of whatever you see on TV or whatever you think you know about city people.J probably provided an example that was different than that.” Fellow commuter Sasha says, “And I’m not a stereotype, I’m not what you see on TV, so just being my authentic self, I think, just to show them that it’s not one definition of somebody—and it’s not even Black/White, it’s city/suburban.” Elise, a 30-year-old college-educated businesswoman, attended the school as a boarder. She echoes this theme, discussing how she projected a positive image and implicitly taught the White community that not “everyone who is Black or Latino or Asian or whatever comes from one type of area.”
Some of the Black students interviewed took the bus to and from school each day from other cities, farther away from school.
Mary Taylor, Pexels
Responding Through Stereotype
Still other women respond to these racialized assumptions by living up to stereotypes, even if they are inaccurate representations of these women’s personal experiences. Alexandra, a town resident who was told to stay after school for extra help, capitalized on her teachers’ ignorance and their expectations that she needed to take the bus home to Urbana, and thus had to leave.
And when we stay after school, they announce the city bus is leaving and I am told to stay after school with a teacher or something, soon as they say that—the teachers are like, ‘Alright, see you later Alexandra!’ And in my head I’m just like, ‘Okay, well...’ So it got to the point where like they announce the commuter bus and I’m like ‘Okay, bye!’ Jade, another Mayfair resident who experienced geographic misplacement, similarly commented about being excused from after school extra help and detentions, “So I-I actually milked that, and I was like, ‘Okay, I won’t stay after.’ It was all because I was Black.”
By responding to these geographic stereotypes as they do, Alexandra and Jade are reclaiming some form of power. If White members of the community are going to geographically “other” them, they will use it to their perceived advantage and avoid detentions and study halls. Unfortunately, these responses may mean they miss out on resources that could be of help to them, such as after-school academic assistance.
Skin Tone Over Social Class
Although I did not collect data on the role of skin tone, but instead asked about self-identified race and ethnicity, a small number of women explicitly spoke about it. Two women, one Mayfair resident and one commuter student from Urbana, talked about how they were able to “pass” because of their light skin; the town resident said she was assumed to be “on their team.” They felt their skin tone provided them with a privileged position in town, one they had not sought out and actively rejected. In contrast, a woman who had graduated from the boarding program talked about how dark-skinned she was, and how that left her feeling particularly out of place.
At the same time, a number of women discussed the role of social class and the assumptions made about their economic standing based upon their racial identity. Yolanda, Sasha, and Noel, all graduates of the commuter program who actively self-identified as middle-class, discussed the ways in which their home communities were imagined to be impoverished, violent, and crime-ridden. Alana, an older graduate of the boarding program, also came from a middle-class background, but was also assumed to be poor. Faith, a middle-class resident, was the young woman placed on the commuter bus and sent “home.” Regardless of their point of entry, their social class does not protect them from experiences of either geographic misplacement for those who are town residents or of imagined geographies for those who are commuters and boarders. These findings reflect Cookson and Persell’s 1991 study of Black students at elite boarding schools. Even thirty years later, race continues to trump class in many ways.
Implications of Racialized Assumptions
Racializing geography can have longer-term and larger implications. Sara, Faith, and Veronica, three middle and upper-middle class women who grew up in Mayfair, all discuss how their geographic misplacement impacted them as adults, including an unwillingness to remain in the community. When Faith is asked if she would want to raise her children there, she is not sure. She enjoyed the safety and the good schools, but the presumption of “otherness” has stayed with her. She says of the White community, “People who have been on this same track for their entire life, like oh, you know, ‘African American people live in Urbana.’ They’re stuck in their ways and they forget that it could be different. That’s how me getting sent to Urbana, that was like the little mix up. And then [the teacher] had to learn that, ‘Oh, maybe there are students [of color] who live here.’“ Veronica, a Black Mayfair resident who married her White high school boyfriend, moved out of town with her family and attributes the move to being repeatedly asked if she was their child’s nanny. Unfortunately, this understandable response to geographic misplacement reinforces residential segregation, and from there, the assumption that people of color do not live in this community.
Geographic misplacement also keeps students from getting what they need. Alexandra and Jade, two residents who struggled in school and needed additional assistance, failed to get it because they were assumed to be commuter students who could not stay after school. Such assumptions chill teacher-student relationships. Alexandra felt, in response to geographic assumptions, that her teachers didn’t “care to get to know me for me, for who I am.” Jade makes a similar comment.
Women also discuss feelings of isolation and shame, resulting from imagined geographies. Sasha, a commuter student who was asked in front of the whole class about being scared to live where she lived, says, “It kind of made you feel shameful.” Karenna, a boarding student, when talking about the assumptions that because she was Black and from an urban area that she must be poor, says, “I think there were just moments when I felt bad for being there.”
In Conclusion
Individual experiences scale-up: social networks are less likely to integrate racially when women feel shame and isolation about where they are from; students who need assistance continue to struggle academically, perpetuating an achievement gap; and people of color, as adults, may not want to live in towns such as this one or send their children into such environments, preserving “White” and “Black” spaces.
Although individual women, sometimes quite heroically, work to overturn long-held beliefs about who lives where and what those communities look like, the issue of racialized space needs to be dealt with on a variety of levels. White students, parents, teachers, and administrators, the “gatekeepers” of the community, must reframe their thinking about who “belongs” where, as well as what urban neighborhoods look like. At the student level, initiatives could include broader curriculums and field trips to the nearby city to better understand the diversity of urban communities. At the adult level, mandatory diversity and inclusion programs should be initiated for teachers and administrators. Beyond such individual and even community-level initiatives, structural changes are essential. Centuries of race-based policies have translated into heavily segregated communities, and into the expectation of racially distinct communities, reflecting and reinforcing the reality around us. Further, the findings here suggest that there is more to racial segregation than simply a question of economics. Although more affordable housing in affluent communities is certainly to be prioritized, this alone will not solve the problem of racial segregation, as middle and upper-middle class women in the study reveal their experiences, unprotected by money. We must work to both change individual expectations and deconstruct racialized ideas about space, as well as construct communities that are economically accessible and socially desirable to all, regardless of race or skin tone.