Institutional Racism: Alive and Well at Middlebury College

The author has been fired for judgment, conduct and views unbecoming an FYC.

While there are details not present about Luaay's case in this article, it still presents an important perspective on the events that transpired. For better or worse, I chose to focus on Luaay’s removal and the openness of our community. For a more full account of Luaay’s visit check out the Midd-Blog article.

The dialogue surrounding this post has been beautiful. Luaay's case is not the only instance where race and class are implicated in very real ways on campus and in our society. We attend a college whose function is to reproduce the ruling class in an imperialist, white supremacist, patriarchal society. Given the society in which we find ourselves, together we must confront issues of race, class, gender, ability, et cetera to work toward a more just and inclusive community. Share your stories, listen to everyone, engage in dialogue, challenge and grow.

This article was removed between December 1st and 14th, while the my position in the Stewart community was being discussed. Here is the letter that was posted for some of that time. Because it was never my intention to permanently remove this article, here is the original text, returned again to its rightful place in the public forum:

Xenia. 

      

      And I don’t mean the social house. Xenia is Greek for the concept of guest-friendship. The idea is that you welcome all guests into your home, you feed and house them, and you build lifelong bonds of friendship and connection with them. Xenia is about creating an inclusive community.

     So my friend Luaay has been staying with me for the past week. As I was informed this afternoon, that is in violation of public safety’s guest policy: “A guest of a student may stay in a dormitory no more than three days in any one term.” Surely, Luaay is not the only one to have violated this policy.

      But Luaay’s case is unique in that public safety, without ever having contacted with him, deemed Luaay a "threat to the community" at which point the middlebury police department was called to apprehend him, issuing a No Trespass Order. Some of y’all may have seen him being detained Monday night by five officers in the lobby of davis library. The behavior of middlebury police and the department of public safety officers was consistently condescending and disrespectful towards both Luaay and myself. This appalling behavior continued and was aimed towards other students who subsequently became involved. public safety was not interested in hearing his side of the story; they simply wanted him gone.

      One officer remarked that my friendship with Luaay was “disturbing.” Back in my dorm, gathering Luaay's belongings, middlebury police officers threatened to arrest myself along with three other students, also for trespassing, if we did not "remove Luaay" more expediently.

I have a broken foot. 

I can only move so quickly down four flights of stairs.

     Yet too much attention to my own condition distracts from the larger context. What one needs to be conscious of is how race and class play into this. Is Luaay, a large, dark-skinned, dreadlocked male, who is "unvetted" by our admissions committee, somehow outside our community norms enough to draw such an aggressive response? How secure are the members of our community who also fit into one, two, or three of Luaay's descriptors? Would he have been so forcibly evicted if he were a wealthy or white friend of mine? Can you imagine a situation in which such a friend might be considered “a danger” to the community? I certainly cannot. 

Whom do we welcome into our community and whom do we call the police on? 

This is surely a question that must be addressed. 

This is not the way we treat members of our community. 

This is not the way we treat our guests.

-So-crates