I cannot stress enough about the need for more faculty of color to be at St. Andrew’s. As Grace Evans ‘19 points out, “having a black female I can look up to in the classroom was very impactful to my learning, especially when math and science are subjects where a lot of people of color feel marginalized especially in a predominantly white space.” Our only African American female faculty, Dr. Cole, left. Amarion said that Dr. Cole was a faculty that he was very close with and also was an inspiring figure to the handful of African American students at school. Hector Cantu ‘19 asked: “who are supposed to be the role models of students of color?” especially when many white faculty are complicit in St. Andrew’s racism and enforce the taboo around conversations about race. Emma Tuhabonye ‘19 points out that the silence of the faculty puts the responsibility on the students of color where there shouldn’t be. For example, Kennedy ‘16 recalled the school's administration silence on the use and subsequent banning of Yik Yak, an anonymous messaging app. A Yik Yak post was made by a then student of St. Andrew’s about a KKK meeting on the Nazro green and that they were to find a black student to bring. This was never addressed by any member of staff.
When white students say racist and ignorant things, the faculty’s unwillingness or overall reluctance to intervene puts the pressure on students of color to say something, to call them out, to educate them in a predominantly white space where doing any of things puts that very student of color in a very dangerous position socially. This is why it is extremely important to hire faculty of color who feel empowered to lead these conversations, and intervene when culturally incompetent remarks are made, therefore empowering students to think and speak more culturally competent. Hector Cantu ‘19 underscores the importance of having faculty who can lead by example and an administration who will support them up when they do.
As for many current white faculty, it is clear some sort of training must be instilled to help them feel confident and competent regarding race. Racism is a white people problem, as Reni Eddo-Lodge says: "[racism] reveals the anxieties, hypocrisies and double standards of whiteness. It is a problem in the psyche of whiteness that white people must take responsibility to solve". Therefore, it is important for white faculty and white students to understand that American society is built upon white supremacist ideals and every white American is socialized to be racist so that they can work to combat racism. Most importantly, it is not a matter of being racist or not racist, but rather how racism is manifested (DiAngelo, White Fragility). Racism does not simply exist in a good/bad binary. One can be a good person-- a good friend, a good parent, an accomplished person, a philanthropist, and still be racist. As a white person, guilt, defensiveness, and all other forms of white fragility are not productive in overcoming internalized racism (DiAngelo). There have been multiple accounts of white faculty refusing to come to terms with their own internalized racism. If the white faculty isn’t willing to lead by example, how can we expect St. Andrew’s white students to overcome white fragility?