Table Manners

TO FIND A paradigm for the rampant misunderstandings between Blacks and whites in America, one need look no further than the Freshman Union. Freshman Black tables--organized or spontancous gatherings of Black students at the same few tables meal after meal--have long inspired debate on just how integrated Harvard students should be. Most Black students seem to view the fact that Blacks sit at the same takes together at meals and attend the same parties as a good thing, while many whites see the same situation as a symptom of racial polarization and terrorism. Black students, binding together in an affirmation of cultural solidarity, are often viewed by whites as "separatist." And whites, not understanding Blacks' need for simple peer support, come across to Black as racist and patronzing.

When I first applied to Harvard, I gave no though to how many other Blacks would be in my class, or to what race relations on campus would be like. Since I had attended a fairly forward-thinking, liberal, and predominantly white school for 11 years, it never entered my mind that relations between whites and Blacks at Harvard could be any different from those relations I had experienced with whites while I grew up. Sure, Boston had had its fair share of "racial tensions", in the not-too-distant past, but I figured that Harvard was an intellectual island in a sea of emotional racial turmoil. I didn't want to go into South Boston anyway.

But Harvard is not immune to the subtle bigotries which characterize race relations elsewhere. Freshman Black tables represent an attempt to maintain a cultural identity which is different from, but in all respects equal to, that of mainstream white American society.

Black students almost cross the board seem to view the fact that Blacks sit at the same tables together at meals and attend the same parties as a good thing. There are so few Blacks concentrated in anything here that we often feel the need to become close to those that we meet. We face some problems different from those faced by any other ethnic group; we share a culture and history. The tendency to sit together at Black tables, or congregate elsewhere, comes partly from a desire for support; at the same time, it affirms the desire to be recognized as different and somehow special.

HENRY C. MOSES, dean of freshman, says, "I've always though it was a nice thing that Black freshmen felt free to sit with each other or to sit somewhere else. I don't think it's a symptom of any greater racial problem here." But Moses' sentiments are not always them norm. Whites often interpret the existence of Black tables as an indication or at least a symbol of racial tensions. And for Blacks, the existence of tables is a minor detail of race relations next to the general racial atmosphere at the University. The non-existence of a Third World cultural center and the severe paucity of tenured Black professors makes Blacks wary of attending Harvard. It's a fact that minority recruitment and admissions are at an all-time high, yet the number of accepted Black applicants who decide to attend Harvard decreases every year. According to several minority recruiters, a question often heard from prospectives is "How does Harvard treat its Blacks?" And many recruiters feel compelled to answer, "Not too well."

THE FAULT, though, lies not only with white insensitivity, but also with Black hypersensitivity. Often motivated by mistrust and misunderstanding, white separate themselves from Blacks in the dining halls and at parties. In Leverett House, for example, a handful of Blacks sit at tables which are predominantly white. But even rarer is the white who will comfortably sit at a table of all--or nearly all--Black students.

Blacks view this reluctance not only as white separation, but also as white disinterest, which in turn leads them to identify even more exclusively with other Blacks. So what started out as peer support and an affirmation of culture rapidly institutionalizes the separation from which Blacks and whites ostensibly wish to escape.

In the ideal and cropian state, or University, Black tables will no longer exist in either the Union or the Houses. Whites will accept Black, and vice verse, to the extent that the two races can approciate each other's cultural differences without using them as a basis for separation. Blacks will be secure enough in their identify--racial, cultural, or otherwise--so that Black tables will not be necessary to develop the sense of "being Black." While there is nothing wrong with Black tables as expressions of cultural solidarity, when they become ends in themselves, they thwart the purpose for which they originally appeared.