Party discrimination leaves some minority students at the door

By Michele Enos

Deanna Sainten's body stiffens when she talks about experiencing racism at a Santa Clara party for the first time. She was a freshman. Her sweatshirt hood covers most of her head and she sits on her small couch where, wrapped in a large soft comforter, her face becomes serious and her warm brown eyes get cold.

"My friend and I went to a party," Sainten recalled. "And at the door a girl asked us if we knew anyone at the party. We told her a friend of ours invited us, and she told us, 'we didn't invite the Multicultural Center.' My friend asked what she meant and eventually we just got the door shut in our faces."

Now a graduate student at Santa Clara, Sainten isn't the only student who has faced racism. Tensions have run high on campus after photos surfaced of athletes in costumes that mocked working class Latinos. But students say stereotyping isn't the only form of discrimination they experience, that they are also excluded from off-campus parties because of their race.

At an Igwebuike, Santa Clara's black student union, meeting during fall quarter, members were asked to raise their hands if they had ever experienced racism or discrimination at a Santa Clara party. The majority of the 25 in attendance did.

Sixty-one percent of Santa Clara students are white, but out of 4,983 undergraduates, only 133 are black. Ethnic studies professor Tamika Brown said that many are just not interested in issues involving discrimination, the sentiment being that racism is a thing of the past. However, new minority students sometimes find it hard to acclimate to the Santa Clara atmosphere.

"Last year, five or six of our friends who were visiting tried to go to a Halloween party," sophomore Mandy Rawls said. "We went up to the front door and we were immediately told, 'you don't go here,' and asked for our Access cards. We didn't have them, and when our friends tried to walk up, the guys at the door were like, 'oh, wait, no, you can't come in, you guys really don't go here. Look at those fools back there.' We just left."

Rawls' experience didn't end there, she said. As she was leaving the front lawn, a group of white women approached the house, introducing themselves and stating that they didn't know anyone but heard there was a party going on. They were immediately let in.

"What makes it hard here," said Rosa Guerra-Sarabia, 1995 Santa Clara alumna and Leadership, Excellence and Academic Development coordinator, "is things aren't overt. A lot of things are so discreet it makes students feel like, OK, I think something happened but I'm not sure and it just made me feel very uncomfortable."

Senior and ex-soccer player Jon Barbarin had an experience where his race became an issue at a house party. Barbarin entered a party last year with two other black students who play on the soccer team with about 15 white students.

"Within our group of about 20 or so, one of the guys from the house approached me and another African-American student," Barbarin said. "He asked us if we went to Santa Clara. We said yes, and he asked us where we lived. I had never met the guy before and just thought he was being friendly. I told him where we lived and asked him his name and he just walked away. He simply continued to pick out the guys who didn't 'belong.' None of our white friends were questioned that night."

While minority students have been denied access to parties or required to show a Santa Clara ID, different types of parties also leave minority students feeling ridiculed, according to Rawls and other members of Igwe.

Although the "south of the border" party has been the focus of recent attention, parties with themes like "tall tees and 40s" or "ghetto" that stereotype hip-hop culture, gangs and black or Latino males are also common off campus.

"When those parties happen here," theatre Department Chair Aldo Billingslea said, "it's sometimes just a little more painful because this is a place that espouses social justice with students who are that much, supposedly, more aware. It's just that much more painful."

Rawls said the parties are about more than humor.

"Don't pretend to be something you're not," Rawls said. "These parties and people at them are a mockery to predominantly the black culture and the Latin culture. You don't see black students throwing a white-honkey-emo-Ugg party where in order to get in you have to wear Uggs with a skirt and have your daddy's lawyer sue your way in."

While there are other themed parties that many deem just as offensive, Sainten notes an important difference.

"It's one thing for a group of white students to put on a white trash party and have a predominantly white crowd attend this party," Sainten said. "It is another thing to hold a stereotype party about an isolated group on campus in which most members of the group do not attend. That is not OK."

Sophomore Kristina Thompson, a member of Igwe, said, "Oftentimes it is a struggle for blacks to get others to see what is happening at Santa Clara."

Some white students have said they are aware of stereotyping.

"I've overheard students talking the day after parties about not letting people in because they didn't go to Santa Clara," senior Aaron McKenna said. "When asked how they knew these people didn't go here they said it's because they went to San Jose State. When asked how they knew they went to San Jose State, the response was either because they were wearing baggy or 'ghetto' clothes or because of the color of their skin."

Both students and faculty think there is an issue that is not being addressed. Although there was an Associated Students-sponsored forum held last Thursday to discuss racism and stereotyping and will be an MCC-organized diversity chat tonight, the issue had not been previously discussed publicly.

"We have not had any forums or any opportunities for organizations to come and mediate some of these concerns, and the students, unfortunately, they just take it," Brown said.

With limited resources on campus, the approximate 50 members of Igwe turn to the Multicultural Center for support or to the five black professors on campus -- only two of whom are tenured.

"The administration here knows they need to do a better job and I hope they open up the doors for more faculty of color to come in here," Brown said.

Lisa Millora, assistant dean for student life, also discussed potential changes in bias incidents/hate crimes protocol, a change which resulted from racially-charged graffiti found in a downstairs bathroom in Benson Memorial Center last year.

With a more narrow definition of bias incidents and hate crimes, the improved protocol could also better explain the steps students take if they or someone else are victimized.

"There's been a little bit of a delay that's procedural," Millora said. "So this was, until recently, in the hands of the university policy committee for student affairs. They approved the protocol and now it is just sitting there. The protocol is ready to be implemented."

Along with this potential change in protocol, Millora is working on creating a broader campus advocate program for students of color.

"Last fall I actually worked on setting up a pilot program and we're actually in the middle of training a group of pilot people," said Millora. "What we would do is actually expand our existing campus advocate program."

However, Millora said the current program hasn't developed as quickly as she might like, and it could take over 10 years before it becomes fully-fledged.

Billingslea said it is important for the university to make changes in the system, but it is essential for both students that are victims and bystanders to stand up to discrimination on campus.

"What's critically important is not just the fact that tragedy occurs," Billingslea said, "but what we do in response to it. And if we turn our head, if we just say, 'that's too bad,' as opposed to having the courage to confront them with their bigotry when it makes itself known and say, 'that's not alright,' because too often the bigot takes the silence for approval and continues."

"I liken it to a rape in progress where you have to fight back -- you have to try and fight back and defend our integrity, which is being violated."

Contact Michele Enos at menos@scu.edu.