By Greta Anderson, Inside Higher Education, October 23, 2020
Black students continuously experience, fight against and bear emotional scars from racism, which can lead to increased anxiety and poor mental health outcomes. Some colleges are just starting to address these issues.
Colbie Lofton’s first week of classes at Appalachian State University is sealed in her mind.
Lofton, who is Black, asked her macroeconomics professor a question during class and heard someone sitting behind her say, "I guess n****rs don’t understand."
Lofton, "completely shocked" to hear a racial slur used so casually, said nothing, and neither did her professor, who Lofton said paused and appeared to have heard the comment. When the class ended, Lofton left, reeling from hurt, and went to a nearby bathroom to cry. She then returned to her dorm and confided in her roommate, but she said she didn’t report the comment to the university because she was not aware of the process to do so.
That 2018 incident was a marker for other racial incidents that would follow at the predominantly white campus in North Carolina and leave Lofton without any illusions about the deep prejudices that some students on campus have against Black people. She has felt “out of place” ever since and hyperaware of her surroundings, which has taken a toll on her mental health.
"That is a story that continues to sit with me," said Lofton, who is now a junior.
She is not alone. Black students at many predominantly white colleges have long complained of the racial hostility, subtle and blatant, that they regularly encounter on their campuses. Whether victims of constant microaggressions or outright verbal or physical assaults, many have stories of being called a racial slur directly or seeing it scrawled on a campus wall, viewing racist posts by classmates on social media, or sitting through a presentation by a classmate professing a white supremacist conspiracy. The incidents were the focal points of protest movements and demands for change for several years, but the calls for action seemed to reach a crescendo this year as Black students at colleges across the country repeatedly called for college administrators to condemn and address racism on their campuses.
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