Microaggressions: An Interview with the Director of Social Media, Cameron Adams, and the Director of Research, Victoria Gorum

Victoria: Did you feel represented by the books you read? If yes, was it a positive/accurate representation?

Cameron: Holistically, no. I’d say about 90% of my high school literary experience was based on books by White authors. The topic of race was only discussed from the perspective of White authors who didn’t really experience racism in the 21st century. The only time I felt represented was when my Black, queer English teacher actually included BIPOC in our curriculum. She was not only an excellent teacher, but she understood the need for representation. We read A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and Beloved by Toni Morrison in her class, to name a few. But for the rest of my high school experience, the school curriculum grossly under-represented its student population that was 81% BIPOC.

Victoria: Can you describe a time when you experienced a microaggression in the classroom?

Cameron: I remember in 7th grade, my White teacher was unusually nice to me, yet my dark-skinned friends would get yelled for no reason. She would say things along the lines of, “Cameron, you’re so different,” because I was lighter-skinned, when my darker-skinned peers had the same grades, positive attitude, and work ethic. When I was older, a different White English teacher had us read a short story called A Rose to Emily that constantly repeated the n-word. I am the type of person to speak my mind in class, but the next day, I refused to talk about this racist text. The teacher noticed, and then called me up after class to say that “the racism in the text is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable.” He was trying to validate a White author’s use of slurs and his teachings of A Rose to Emily with no regard for how his Black students might feel or what effect that will have on them.

Victoria: Did you end up having to find an outlet/space where you did feel comfortable exploring your own identity?

Cameron: Yes, I — and I’d say a lot of the Black kids at my school — found a safespace with the same teacher that had us read BIPOC books. She was the type of teacher who knew that a school with over 3,000 students who are mostly BIPOC didn’t have a lot of in-school resources that allowed them to connect with their cultures and identities; all of the works were taught by primarily White teachers who taught White history that ended up erasing BIPOC experiences. Outside of the classroom, those safe spaces were mostly with my BIPOC friends. We would bring each other food from our respective cultures, talk about seasonal traditions, or protect each other by telling which staff member or classmate was especially discriminatory. 

Victoria: Did you have the opportunity to learn about other cultures and ethnicities?

Cameron: In the classroom, not as much as I’d like. We’d typically spend less than a week discussing BIPOC stories. It was like that for most of my high school experience; we would only have super quick mini group discussions about the BIPOC books we read over the summer and that would be it. I’ve almost never had a BIPOC book taught as part of an in-school lesson. On the other hand, we would spend a month or longer on the texts written by the White authors. For reference: I read A Thousand Splendid Suns and Cyrano de Bergerac in the same year; the class spent less than a week on A Thousand Splendid Suns which had 419 pages while we spent a month on Cyrano de Bergerac which had 144 pages. 

Victoria: Are there any other experiences you want to share?

Cameron: My history class was just as bad as my English classes: aside from the fact we spent a very short time covering BIPOC history in general, my White history teacher once said that the Black Panthers were a terrorist group. She would even say that, “the White people in the slums during the Industrial Revolution had it very bad. Almost as bad as slavery.” 

Victoria: One of my teachers once told me about the time he went to Chicago and decided to take a walk after dark. He said that he saw a Black kid on his bike and “got a bad feeling” and thought to himself “well, I’m liberal and I don't want to judge people.” He ended up being robbed by the kid, and due to this single experience, decided that “Black people are prone to violence which makes sense why the police treat them worse.” He considers himself “liberal” but then would go outrightly spewing these racist things.

Cameron: White people often use the fact that they’re Democrats or liberal as a copout to not address their own implicit biases. They use that “fact” to not own up to the violence that they help perpetuate against Black, Indigenous, People of Color. 

Victoria: MLK has this quote where he basically says, “I’m not scared of the KKK, I am more scared of the White moderate.” Being a Democrat and a liberal doesn’t mean you’re not racist. 

Cameron: The other day I tweeted, “the White people who are posting screenshots of racist things their families have said but aren’t doing anything to call out their racism is not okay.” Then my White friend asked, “well what can I do to be a better ally?” I told her to start signing petitions, spreading information, etc. Then she countered, “I don’t think that’s the best way to be an ally, I’m just going to do me.” She was spreading racist words and actively ignoring a Black person’s advice on how to be a better ally to Black people — literally a paragon of performative allyship.