Noble and Greenough's "Black Alcove": An Examination of a Clustered Community of Students of Color by Alden Mauck
When I came to Nobles, they told me there was a Freshman alcove, a sophomore alcove, a junior alcove, a senior alcove and a black alcove.
---A Noble and Greenough Freshman
When the Local Motion shuttle bus from the Forest Hills T-stop arrives at the School, the Black Alcove fills quickly. All of the Noble and Greenough students who
take public transportation come from Boston; almost all are students of
color. When they first enter the school many head immediately for
the Black Alcove. The faces in the all-school photographs of the classes
of 1922-1923, 1924-1925 and 1926-1927 peer down at the Black Alcove with
Mayflower assuredness; they are all male and all white.
Teo Barros '03 wrote this about the Black Alcove for his final English paper of the year:
This (the existence of the Black Alcove) indicates that minority students
throughout the school feel disconnected and by coming together they
are creating their own comforting environment like the white kids are
doing.
Jesse saunters by the Alcove. African-American, he has a quick
and sometimes caustic wit. He is bright yet seems unwilling to
compromise either his sense of rebellion or his disdain for the Noble
culture in order to succeed here. Instead of going to the library, he
is a fixture in the Black Alcove. At the disastrous conclusion
of his junior year the faculty votes to place him on Step 3 academic status,
in effect asking him to leave the school. (Like many of the students in
this article, Jesse is a composite of several different Noble students,
and so his name appears with no graduation year after it. Teo Barros
'03, who is several times cited here, is an actual Noble student.)
Francisco is Latino and yet readily accepted in the Black Alcove. He finds
in this alcove the urban experience and culture that he cannot find in
the sophomore class alcove, which is divided by a wall into two major
groups: the "cool" group of athletic boys and attractive girls, many of
whom share the desire for good grades, high parental expectations and
a home address in Weston, Wellesley or West Newton, and another group,
whose interest in art and Harvard Square (or whose lack of interest in
athletics) separates them from their classmates. In both groups,
the conversation can evolve into talk of Caribbean vacations or summer
homes on the Cape or the latest from the Dave Matthews Band. There is
little to engage Francisco in either group, so he migrates down the hall
to the Black Alcove in order to find the Noble community that most nearly
allows him to be himself.
Rashad, another sophomore, is African American and Muslim. He often
checks in at the Black Alcove as he comes back from lunch and again at
the end of the day. Rashad, a fine football player, is popular among his
white classmates. More importantly, Rashad has been at Noble and Greenough
since the seventh grade. His brothers, recent graduates, are at
Penn and Howard. Rashad is able to move back and forth between the two
alcoves. His classmates value him as one of the school's preeminent athletes
and as an established member of the social scene. Meanwhile, his
name, race, and Muslim faith provide him a ready entree into the Black
Alcove.
Serena and Jasmine are seniors and are inseparable. They were inseparable
even during their School Year Abroad, when as juniors they sought time
away from the School. Determined and focused, these young women
are the female intellectual force in the Black Alcove. While the seemingly
indifferent attitude of some of the boys can sometimes confirm teachers'
low expectations of them and provoke a further unwillingness on their
part to confront or to care, the language and tone of the girls are energetic
and intellectual and counter the laconic manner of the boys. Serena and
Jasmine talk school, literature, history, politics and race. They want
to write, to be investment bankers, to practice law, and now they want
to react to Nobles as culture and place.
Ty is quiet but his presence is commanding nonetheless. He is 6'7"
and one of the best basketball players that the School has had in many
years. Originally from Boston, he came to Noble from Lexington
High School, where as a Freshman "Metco" student he started on the basketball
team. In these suburban high schools, public and private, he has
always been the stereotyped black basketball player – but the stereotype
also represents a personal dream. Even in his junior year, college coaches
are already visiting campus to "work him out." His athletic identity has
enabled him to avoid focusing on his studies and has enabled the adults
in the School to be indifferent to his intellect and his GPA... until
now, that is.
Gary spends more time at Noble than perhaps any other student.
He is a member of the small boarding community that is the most diverse
pocket of the Noble population. He also attends the UMass - Boston
Upward Bound summer program located at Noble and so is on campus for six
weeks in July and August. The UB community is 95% students of color and
it is during UB that Gary feels most comfortable at Noble. At the end
of his junior year, Gary wins the Bond Prize for Academic Improvement
by raising his GPA from C-minus to B.
For one young woman, the choice has been to avoid the Black Alcove despite
her bi-racial identity. Violet's "place" in the senior alcove is
close by the Black Alcove, yet separated by a wall that provides the Black
Alcove its intimacy. Most, if not all, of her friends are white; Violet
lives in the suburbs and drives to school in a BMW. Perhaps she avoids
the Black Alcove to distance herself and to establish herself as intellectual
or social as opposed to black. She may find a part of her identity
in the Black Alcove, but not necessarily the part that will get her the
most mileage at a school like Nobles.
However,
Violet is aware of the complications of race and she has written about
her bi-racial identity and otherwise confronted the question: "What are
you, anyway?" The question in its very simplicity defines the power of
race as socially constructed identification. Should she be with those
who share her African American heritage, an identification which will
always eclipse her "white" identity in others' perceptions of her? Time
will tell.
Three eighth grade boys, Jason, Alex and Matt, stop by the alcove almost
daily, on their way to or returning from lunch. African American
and Latino, they come by to talk and to connect with the models that they
do not have in their separate Middle School, which has fewer students
and faculty of color than the Upper School. In the Black Alcove for a
brief time they are among other students who share their race, ethnicity
and culture in ways both simple and profound. By visiting the Black Alcove,
these three friends grow their "community" beyond themselves and when
they move into the Upper School, they will undoubtedly claim space in
the Black Alcove and continue to maintain it as a fixture in Noble's institutional
"real estate."
What might be the response of the classes of 1922-1923, 1924-1925 and
1926-1927 to this territorial claim by students of color? More importantly,
what will the responses to the Black Alcove be from the classes of 2005,
2010 and 2025?
Noble's Alcove Culture = White
The Black Alcove is so visible because it stands in stark contrast to
the rest of Noble and Greenough, which may define itself as racially neutral
but which, in reality, is unconsciously appraised and claimed as white
space.
The majority white culture of the Noble community predominates in all
of the other hallway alcoves. The claiming of school space by the white
majority also occurs through photographs, plaques, the names of buildings
and, of course, through the accepted and expected clustering of those
students who are white and often wealthy. Surrounded by each other, white
students at Noble find a comforting extension of their families, neighborhoods,
and circles of friends in the hallway alcoves. Everywhere around
them there is an unintended and undiscussed, yet powerful affirmation
of their racial majority. Even when it is noted, this clustering
of white students is perceived as normal in an independent school and
the ownership of independent school space and culture by white students
and faculty may be troubling to faculty and administrators at schools
like Noble in light of the good news regarding the growing diversity in
their student bodies. Noble and Greenough currently has 18% students
of color and the return of alumni/ae of color invariably notice positive
changes in this area.
Ironically, while the Black Alcove is perceived as a sign of racial clustering,
the other alcoves are never identified as "white." In these alcoves, students
of color are often acutely cognizant of the racial difference between
themselves and their peers. Meanwhile, few white students ever enter the
Black Alcove for any length of time and those who do submit to a radical
adjustment in their status - they are in the minority in the Black Alcove.
Because of their hesitation to enter, white students (and faculty)
never attain an enlightened view of the experience faced by students of
color. Without contact and understanding, white students rely upon what
they have already learned - racial falsehoods and assumptions that inform
their reactions and confirm their expectations. Is the overall white majority
student response to the Black Alcove racist or merely racially aware?
Clearly, the white response is both.
Teo Barros '03
speaks to this problem of white perception of the Black Alcove:
When asked to write down some of the stereotypes
about black people, a group that was primarily constructed of white students
wrote down - "dangerous" as one of their stereotypes and that blacks always
hung around other blacks. Immediately the thought of where many
of the minority students hang out came to mind and later, due to the incident
that happened to a friend of mine, the sad realization that many of the
white students feel unsafe to sit in the black dominated alcove sank in.
The 'black alcove,'
although it is not, comes to look menacing since it looks like the black
students do not accept anyone else but other black students. This
can falsely support claims like the ones made by the group of white students
regarding stereotypes.
The interesting part
about all this is that the black alcove is given more attention since
it seems to intimidate many of the white kids... a friend of mine, like
myself and my other friends, has a white friend who on a particular day
felt scared to ask him what some class' homework was since she had never
been to the 'black alcove'.
Some white students at Noble and Greenough, as well as some teachers and
parents, may come to see the Black Alcove as exclusive or unwelcoming.
From that point it is not far for them to the rationalization of
"reverse discrimination" or an assumption that you have to be "Black"
to be welcome in the Black Alcove. These convenient justifications
allow those in the majority to accuse those in the minority of exclusion
and prejudice.
However, the notion of racial exclusion has little to do with the reality
of the Black Alcove and far more to do with white perceptions of it.
White students at Noble see the Black Alcove as reserved for students
of color because they all too often do not view themselves as racial beings.
Instead race is reserved for the identification and behavior of
the "other" and at Noble the "other" is frequently the students of the
Black Alcove.
Back
to The Black Alcove
For some students of color, primarily but not exclusively African American,
the Black Alcove is a necessary sanctuary from Noble's larger, louder
and more privileged white culture. The Black Alcove is a place in which
students of different age groups and with diverse interests gather.
While the Black Alcove is in the area of the hallway that has evolved
into junior and senior space, many of the students who consistently congregate
in the Black Alcove are sophomores. Although it is more urban and
less materialistic than the other alcoves, class and geography also enter
into the formation of the Black Alcove's membership - it is not simply
a racial arrangement. Ultimately, in the safety of the Black Alcove,
"minority" representation and status caused by race, as well as class,
are far less in play than anywhere else on campus and so diverse students
of color congregate there.
Some
of those students who frequent the Black Alcove are of course "Black",
but they are not all African American. They are all identified
as Black in the naming of the alcove because Black translates as race
at Noble and Greenough, and in America. Many of the Black Alcove's
students are Hispanic, Caribbean, Cape Verdean, Indian and European in
ancestry and some are bi-racial.
It
is a multicultural community but membership can come at a price,
as Teo Barros notes:
As a Cape Verdean with dark complexion, the association
with African Americans is almost expected. Though not offensive
since the relation with African Americans is stronger compared with one
with white Americans, it does cause disappointment since a feeling of
individuality is stripped away.
The Black Alcove is not a complete affirmation or representation of all
members' specific race and culture. In particular, the Black Alcove is
not a space towards which Asian American students of Korean, Chinese,
Japanese and Vietnamese descent will gravitate. The Black Alcove
has a culture of its own that does not translate for all "Students of
Color." This phenomenon reminds us that the experiences and the
spaces necessary for survival and satisfaction in an independent school
are not the same for all students who are not white, suburban and wealthy.
The Black Alcove cannot meet all the needs of all students of color nor
should it be expected to, but it does meet a need for many students of
color and so must be nurtured and protected. Its existence is to a certain
extent a de facto indictment of the diversity initiatives of Nobles, and
calls into question the supposed "sea changes" over the past twenty years,
for it is still a school in which eight of every ten students are white.
In a student body that is only 6% African American, the Black Alcove
is an affinity response by students who are aware, both consciously and
unconsciously, of the need to find a racially specific community to limit
the powerful wedge of race. There is a polar, if not polarized,
view of diversity at our schools and not surprisingly, students of color
gather with those who see their academic world similarly, and so the Black
Alcove and other areas where students of color cluster - a section of
a dorm, a team, cafeteria tables - emerge out of need. While some
white students may see the Black Alcove as exclusive, disruptive or defiant
- an obstacle to pass by or an awkward moment during admissions tours--what
it provides its members is sanctuary, friendship and community; exactly
what we hope all of our students will find at Nobles.
The Black Alcove exists as a visible reality and as an opportunity for
Noble and Greenough sincerely to address issues of race. The Black
Alcove must be preserved, demystified and incorporated into the larger
school hallway culture so that the experiences of African American students
and others who see this space as their haven are understood, honored and
included. Otherwise the Black Alcove, as well as other independent
school clusters of students of color, will be a space to be feared, stereotyped
and avoided by the white majority and our schools will create separate
and unequal worlds.
Finally...
Discussing aversive racism, Paula Chu has spoken of students of color
as the "canaries" of independent schools, alluding to the use of the birds
as early detectors of poisonous gas in coal mines. Her point is
that students of color and their concerns, questions, suggestions and
occasional rebellions are warnings about an independent school culture
that still holds pockets of "poisonous air" that create a racially divisive
atmosphere and experience for all students. If the underlying needs of
the Black Alcove are ignored, deflected and dismissed, then all of our
students will breathe racially poisonous air for years to come.
Beyond the solution of enrolling and hiring more students and faculty
of color, and changes in the curriculum, lie the answers of greater interest
in and acceptance of the clustering of students of color. The white
majority at Noble, faculty as well as students, must respectfully acknowledge
the Black Alcove and carefully listen to the songs of its members.
A Postscript
Like many other diversity initiatives in independent schools, both formal
and informal, the Black Alcove was dependent upon the students who maintained
its existence and its presence. Many of the students who frequented
the Black Alcove have now graduated, and the Black Alcove, along with
what it represented, has left with them. Now, under the watchful
eyes of the classes of 1922–1927, white students sit and study in
that space.
