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Invisible Men Speak Out at Guilford
'"You know the best selling paint we got, the one that made
this here business?'"
'"No, I don't.
'"Our white, Optic White.
"'Why the white rather than the others?'"
"'Cause we started stressing it from the first. We make the
best white paint in the world... Our white is so white you can paint
a chunka coal and you'd have to crack it open with a sledge ham
mer to prove it wasn't white dear through!"'
Invisible Man , Ralph Ellison
Mary Layton Atkinson
Staff Writer
Eight panelists brought their
sledge hammers to a discussion
entitled "Invisible Men: Black Men
at Guilford Speak" in a packed
Bryan Jr. Auditorium April 2.
Community members Chris
topher Lett, Ernest McCoy, Abel
Ndingwan, Rushdee Omar, James
Shields, Isa Stokes, Joe Vereen,
and Cesar Weston braved frigid
conditions in the over-air-condi
tioned auditorium to share their
black men must either assimilate or respect their heritage.
Alexandra Stewart
fin A
insights on what it means to be
a black man and the challenges
black men face at Guilford Col
lege.
The event was sponsored
by Carolyn Beard Whitlow's
Black Men Writers course. The
panel began with brief opening
statements by each of the men.
Then the panelists answered
questions prepared by the stu
dents of Whitlow's class. In clos
ing, the panelists answered ques
tions from the audience.
Junior Isa Stokes, the first
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James Shields, Joe Vereen and Cesar Weston addressing black manhood at Guilford.
Alexandra Stewart.
panelist to speak, offered a can
did view of race relations at
Guilford.
"If you think black men are
treated differently at Guilford
than in the rest of the world, then
you are living in a bubble," said
Stokes. "You need to pop that
bubble."
Sophomore Cesar Weston,
continuing the discussion, spoke
about the challenges of being an
African American student at a
majority white college.
"I feel disconnected from
many other black students at
Guilford because there remains
an unspoken standard of black
ness that I, and many other stu
dents, apparently don't live up to,"
said Weston.
"I see that there is [also] a
great disconnectedness between
various white communities at
Guilford and people of color be
cause, as white people, they have
the option of ignoring racial prob
lems in their midst," Weston con
tinued. "A system such as this
opens a Pandora's box of prob
lematic privileges that white stu
dents have, the most problem
atic being their power to ignore
and deny their own passive rac
ism and find reinforcement from
like-minded peers."
Topics addressed by the
panelists not only encompassed
race on campus but in wider
society as well. First-year Chris
Lett described the difficulties of
living in a society that constantly
stereotypes black men.
"Being a black man in
America, you must be above av
erage just to be average. To be
heard, you must be soft in your
approach. If you approach
people with full force, you will in
timidate them," said Lett.
'White America's expecta
tions for black men are pretty low,
or nonexistent. We are supposed
to be present in cw/-community,
and not impede on theirs. We are
expected to smoke weed and not
April 11, 2003
Page 10
support our children," he con
tinued.
Many of the panelists dis
cussed how perpetually being
stereotyped leads to internal
identity struggles.
"It is hard to be who you are
when others are telling you who
you should be," said Joe Vereen,
Associate Dean for Campus Life.
"Often you are faced with
"respect your culture and your
heritage or assimilate," said Jun
ior Rushdee Omar.
The panel went on to discuss
issues such as the use of the 'N'
word in black culture, the taboo
associated with homosexuality in
the black community, and inter
racial relationships at Guilford.
As the discussion concluded,
Director of Community Learning
at Guilford James Shields shifted
the focus from the challenges so
ciety imposes on black men to
the challenges present in black
See Panel, page 16