A white flight school’s struggle to integrate is not unique to St. Andrew’s, which is why it is particularly proud of its unique concoction of the Cultural Competency Council, also known as C3. C3 has a featured section on the St. Andrew’s official website under the admissions tab, then the section on diversity & inclusion, and is supposed to be an organization that combats the diversity issue. C3 was this glimmering hope that carried immense pressure to change St. Andrew’s once and for all, and when it made its debut, change was in the air. However, C3 wasn’t able to fulfill its role due to substantial resistance from all members of the community, and it failed not because C3 itself was inadequate, but it was made to fail and never meant to succeed.
C3 was initially created by Katherine’17 and Gem Williams ‘17, both students who just wished to create some kind of affinity space that is safe for students of color to share their voices and support one another. It became a sort of curriculum focused on teaching white students cultural competency during an extended chapel (regular chapel service happens every day at St. Andrew’s). During the longer than usual chapel, student speakers, guest speakers, or faculty will often speak about issues regarding race and gender followed by breakout conversations in smaller groups. In theory, this sounds amazing, but in practice, it garnered a lot of critique from the students of color and blatant hate from the white student body. As an anonymous C3 member describes, “even incoming freshmen who never experienced C3 hate C3”. “Other than the length”, the student asks, “why is it so bad?”
What is so bad about C3, an organization that aims to burst the privileged white bubble of St. Andrew’s? Both students of color and white students have qualms with C3, but for completely different reasons. Although, it is important to address even from the beginning, C3 has become much more than that, and much different from what Katherine and Gem had initially conceptualized. “We felt like our idea of C3 and what we hoped it would accomplish was co-opted and made palatable for white students from the very beginning. We were not listened to, and our voices were not prioritized. I remember from the beginning we were insistent that the student positions on C3 should NOT be elected positions, but positions appointed by the faculty sponsors. Our thinking was that if C3 is designed to force the white student body to have uncomfortable conversations about race, then of course the white student body would elect people who they felt wouldn't make them uncomfortable (i.e. white students who were already popular and who would not actually be the best champions for C3's goals). Our idea was ignored” (Katherine and Gem ‘17).
Elita Gao ‘18 was part of C3 for three years. She joined C3 to open up conversations with other students about important subjects like race, because around her no one was talking about them outside of class. She observed that St. Andrew’s students are totally different people inside and outside of class. In history class, people would talk about “important” topics (which she defined as anything self-reflective and things outside the realms of gossip), but outside history class, no one really talked about anything ‘important’ She thought the biggest issue was that C3 taught topics instead of skills. Elita observed that C3 received so much hate probably because of its lecture-style format and because it made white students feel uncomfortable in an effort to ‘burst their bubble’. She also felt like C3 wasn’t making any overall improvements to the St. Andrew’s ‘community’ because the school’s administration isn’t really doing much to change. In fact, it is not just the school’s administration that stands in the way of C3.
Many faculty members are relatively apathetic towards C3 partly because they are not adequately trained and feel empowered to lead the very conversations C3 is trying to encourage. In fact, some were even openly hostile to C3. A white male faculty member yelled at Katherine‘17 and condemned her views as wrong and stupid during a C3 breakout discussion on colorblindness and the criminal justice system in front of a whole classroom of white students. As a faculty member, his actions were highly inappropriate and racist. Thankfully, another white faculty member privately confronted that faculty member’s behavior and comforted Katherine. Instances like this show that the faculty who are supposed to be leading by example completely failed their roles. The hate and apathy was coded language used by many white students and faculty to be complicit in their own racism and privilege and resenting those brave enough to address that.
Carolyn Christian ‘18 also served on C3 and thought that C3 colorized and pitted students against each other. Instead, she strongly believed that the concept of C3 needed to be integrated into the curriculum. For example, the 9th-grade history class is a great place to start. She believed that there shouldn’t be big lectures on the concept of diversity, but talks framed around current events. She also strongly advised against breakout discussions because students of color especially often feel attacked and targeted at a predominantly white place like St. Andrew’s.
Jonathan Lim ‘19 was one of the pioneering members of C3 and states that the school consolidates all diversity efforts into a single organization when it should integrate more diversity into its curriculum. He says that diversity is a big issue, and when C3 is the only organization working to tackle this issue, its impact is very limited. The 40 minutes of the chapel allocated to C3 is not enough, but when it asked for more, it was faced with push back. He felt like C3 wasn’t given the tools to succeed, but was seen as a way for the administration to elevate the school’s reputation.
Students of color who didn’t serve on C3 also had many things to say. Hector Cantu ‘19 said C3 was supposed to bring in conversations that didn’t happen because we’re in a white school, but he reported that students often didn’t take it seriously and laughed, refrained from participating in conversations, and proudly broadcasted their apathy on diversity issues and spent most of their time preaching their disdain for C3. He stated that “so many apathetic white students had so much privilege they didn’t even acknowledge that some of [ the experiences of people of color] were even real”. Marisa Washington ‘19 claimed that C3 was merely a box to check off the list for the administration's diversity effort and that it wasn't meaningful to most students. She said, “[C3] did it in such a forceful way, forcing people to listen and sit through lectures, to discuss, and it was embarrassing when the students around me didn’t care”. She felt sad that no one was engaged. As a black student, she felt guilty that she wasn’t on C3 and didn’t want other students thinking she didn’t care about these issues because she cared, but she just didn’t want to be a part of C3.
Kennedy McCormack ‘16 spoke extensively about the issue of being a tokenized biracial black student during cultural competency and diversity day, a predecessor to C3. She felt the pressure of being the spokesperson for her culture, saying “my black experience isn’t the only black experience or isn’t the same black experience as black-passing people/students”. She also addressed the common dilemma biracial students of color faced when thrown into these conversations: “Am I going to be white today and quiet or am I going to be black and standing at the cost of being alienated?” For Kennedy, so much was about people only seeing racial identity as a binary. She felt that “if I was silent I was white that day, and if I was black and responded, what were the consequences going to be? Never once was I allowed to be both.”
And I was also not involved with C3 because I disapproved of it in the many ways my peers of color have shared. I couldn’t tolerate the way that C3 was framed for the white students; its dialogue, its purpose, even its contents are tailored for white students, and therefore watered down. For instance in one particular C3 chapel, I felt so alienated and I absolutely had no idea why I was sitting there watching white students fall asleep to a presentation on Asia’s diversity when it was just slides of the different countries in Asia because China isn’t the only Asian country in the world. I wanted to learn from C3 as well, but the contents often didn't apply to me and in some ways felt indignant having C3 be mandatory for me when I didn’t seem to be the targeted audience.
When the white nappers woke up, I had to tolerate the nonstop chatter of hatred and condemnation for C3. When I voiced my own discontent, I always got weird glances. Once a white student clapped back at me and said “we’ve got to start somewhere” with an approving nod from a white faculty. In my opinion, C3 is an embarrassing catastrophic ‘start’ that only exposed and exacerbated the racism fueled by ignorance and lack of diversity at St. Andrew’s while conspicuously being a publicity stunt for the administration. I never thought about it as a ‘start’ or even a ‘step forward’. For these reasons, C3 unintentionally created an uncomfortable and hostile space for many students of color instead of nurturing a safe space or a progressive space where St. Andrew’s students of color can have their voices be heard and be acted upon. Nonetheless, I’d like to clarify and stress that C3’s catastrophe wasn’t completely because of its own shortcomings. It is the St. Andrew’s administration and community that has failed C3. C3 is a tired and wounded soldier, constantly faced with much more criticism than support, yet absurdly at the same time was used to justify St. Andrew’s efforts in diversity and inclusivity. As mentioned before, C3 as a student organization has been tasked with an impossible mission to tackle systemic, institutional racism, expected to change the demographics of the school, to educate the community, to radically push for anti-racism and racial justice all at the same time.
What C3 illustrates isn’t the reality that St. Andrew’s can’t have any space for diversity or inclusivity, but rather that any change or events that take place at St. Andrew’s about diversity and inclusivity has to take meticulous planning and thought and absolute commitments from all parts of the school--from its people to its money. Who is leading the conversation? Who will be listening? Who will be talking? How are the students of color going to feel? How are the white students going to feel? What often happens is every conversation about diversity and racism within the framework of C3 turns into a discussion about white discomfort because St. Andrew’s is such an aggressive white space where students of color feel marginalized and tokenized, and where the rhetoric of focusing on white guilt, white fragility, white experiences when navigating racism including applauding the accomplishments of bare minimums gets normalized and internalized. At St. Andrew’s, every conversation about race is centered around white people, but it shouldn’t be that way, but when I went there, I thought that’s just what happened. When white people talk about race, they talk about themselves and their feelings. Even if I feel bad, I can’t make white people feel bad, so I must remain silent and deal with microaggressions as an Asian student because it is just the way it is. My goal as a student of color at St. Andrew’s is to not make other white peers feel uncomfortable. This mindset is absolutely toxic and incorrect, yet it has been indoctrinated in me.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion at St. Andrew’s cannot be accomplished through a single platform and must go hand in hand with anti-racism work such as training the faculty and reforming the curriculum at the school. A multilateral approach must be taken, including full support and commitment of resources and energy from the administration. Otherwise, the noble efforts such as C3 will continue to be caught in criticism between both white members of the community and community members of color. The school has a lot of work to undo its rhetoric and actions that have been so traumatic for many students of color. Remember, it is St. Andrew’s that has failed C3, not the other way around.