Understanding

I've been thinking about what it would be like to be an African American woman on Baylor's campus. I think it would be hard regardless of where you are because of the different stereotypes and expectations placed on you in every situation, but I think being at Baylor could have some positives and negatives. Obviously the racial climate on campus would be difficult. Despite the fact that our student population is 35% minority, there is a dominant white culture that is indifferent, or even sometimes hostile, towards minority students in general. This would be hard to navigate regardless of what racial group you were from, but especially if you don't come from a background where you are used to being around mostly white people.

I think a good thing that's happening at Baylor however is the new My Sister Myself initiative. This is a group that meets twice a month and it is specifically for black women to come together and have community and discuss the different issues they face. Knowing what I know now, I see the value this group provides. It would be important to be able to be in community with others without fear of offending or upholding/dismantling stereotypes. I did not understand the actual need for community until doing this project, but now I'm understanding some of our student organizations and different initiatives in a new way, and it makes me appreciate them even more.

I wish there was a way for the student body to learn more about what it's like to be a black woman, or even just a minority in general, but it seems that a lot of our students are disinterested. Working in Multicultural Affairs, we struggle to get white students to come to any of our events at all, simply because we have the word Multicultural in the name. My hope is that we can somehow start to combat that. I don't want white students on campus to feel like they don't belong at our events because we aren't for them. That's not true. I want to see and education across all cultures of what it means to be different from who are you. I think this understanding is important especially when it comes to the experience of being an African American female because they have to deal with both the caveat of being a woman, and that of being African American, making their experience unique.