Candid Conversations: Black in America – Part I

Nicole Price, vice president of the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, recently led a discussion with Wentworth Institute of Technology faculty and staff on the topic of “Black in America and Beyond.” All four participants identify as Black and they talked about racial biases they have encountered, perception of Black America through the media and art, and why it’s important to celebrate Black lives and contributions throughout the year, not simply as part of Black History Month in February. 

Nicole Price:  
I often feel that African American is a semi-loaded term. It doesn’t provide any additional details to anyone than if I say I am Black. I identify as Black first, as a woman second.  

Wayne Bynoe, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering:  
I was born in the Caribbean and lived there until my early teens. I identify as Black. I don’t make a big distinction between Caribbean and American, because I’ve been here for 49 years. I acknowledge that [Caribbean] culture, but I think once you get into the big pot here, we all get the same treatment.  

David Simpson, Assistant Professor, Biological Engineering, and Provost Initiatives Coordinator for Inclusive Excellence:  
I identify as Black, but I have many identities. I think we all do, we’re complex. But the first identity I realized could disadvantage me from the perspective of society was Black. It’s that loss of innocent moments where you’re first called a racial slur, or you recognize you’re being treated differently. So, I would also tend to identify as Black first because of those negative things that presented themselves early on in life.  

Nicole Price:  
What does being Black mean to you? 

Wayne Bynoe:  
My mother was from the poorest of the poor, but she’s an extremely driven, hardworking person that at 16 went out to be a live-in domestic worker with a British family, raising their kids. She’s the reason I’m here. Her drive drove me, and she’s extremely Black conscious. I’m also from Trinidad and they are extremely politically conscious.  

Bynoe’s father closely followed the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., arriving in America during the mid-1960s as part of a Trinidadian scholarship. He worked at a mental institution while taking classes at University of Wisconsin, ultimately providing an opportunity for his wife and six children to come to the country in 1972. 

Wayne Bynoe:  
I feel very comfortable here and identifying with this culture. It is mine. 

Loretta Stephens-Smith, Admissions Assistant:  
I am lighter skinned than my three brothers. Growing up, people would ask if I was mixed with something, Puerto Rican or Dominican. No, I’m Black. But it was hard to identify with being Black, because I would think, “Where does this light skin come from? Why don’t I look like my mother and brothers?” But now I know that I’m a Black female. There’s no surprise. 

David Simpson:  
There’s a negative way of looking at identity and the bad things that might come with it. But my identify comes with a lot of positives, which is why I do identify as Black first, why I enjoy saying I am Black, why I have no problems pointing out my race. I love the culture that exists in our communities and the resiliency that Wayne pointed out. 

Simpson remembers his family being evicted as a kid multiple times and living in a car for a time. Through it all, they remained strong.  

David Simpson:  
I think many Black people can identify with some sort of struggle they’ve had to overcome because of the color of their skin. I think some of the negatives that come with the identity are what gives us that resiliency.  

Nicole Price:  
When I think about Blackness, the beautiful thing is we span the spectrum—we're not a homogenous or monolithic group. We think differently, we speak differently, we look different. But there’s still this underlying current that despite these positives, we have trouble accepting everybody. What, as a people, attributes to us accepting our differences? 

David Simpson:  
I remember, in high school, being picked on by my fellow Black peers because of my voice. Maybe in their eyes, at least initially, something different caused them to make fun of it. But hanging out and getting to know each other, they realized we have the same background. We like the same things. 

Loretta Stephens-Smith:  
I would get into fights all the time because of what other girls thought of me. Eventually, I found my inner circle of friends, but even within that there was a girl, beautiful girl, with darker skin, and she would say people often told her, “You’re beautiful, for a dark skin girl.” She’d cry and tell me I had no idea what that’s like, and she was right. I don’t know what that experience is like. 

Nicole Price:  
Sometimes it feels like a defense mechanism. Before someone can either reject you or hurt you, you perhaps lash out first. I did find my group, which I’m very thankful for. But for me, that goes to the beauty of who we are. There are so many people who share some type of Black or Brown skin. We’re not all going in the same direction or thinking about the same thing in the same way or even speaking the same way. So, you find your people and it feels like home. It is an experience I think we all sort of share.  

Bynoe notes that there are different social classes within the Black race, and that Black people are often categorized by television shows and other media.  

Wayne Bynoe:  
When we lived in a poor neighborhood, we never sat around thinking about that all the time. You know, “I’m poor, I’m in the hood.” But if you look at those TV shows, they make it look like that’s what people do, sit around talking Black and the rest of these things that are made up.  

David Simpson:  
I didn’t even know I was poor until I watched TV. I was a happy little kid.  

Nicole Price:  
I grew up in New York outside of the city. I didn’t grow up around a lot of Black kids. My cousin used to say he was from the hood. It was such an odd thing, because for me coming to visit him or my grandmother, it wasn’t the hood. It was just, “This is where ya’ll live. And there are lots of Black people here, and where I live there doesn’t happen to be any.” And I think that’s sort of related to class, but for me it just felt like family.  

Being Black and of a lower economic class were not things Simpson actively thought about until later in life. 

David Simpson:  
I didn’t know that it was, in some people’s minds, a negative thing. I would talk to anyone growing up, until these negative consequences started occurring. It’s so weird that we place such value on these things and treat people differently because of them. And ultimately, we have a society that ranks us according to all these different identities.  

Loretta Stephens-Smith:  
I’d love to know at what age it really clicks, when you think, “Oh, I’m Black.” What is that age when you start to think that maybe you should not just walk up to anyone? 

David Simpson:  
I don’t know what age it was for me, but I remember particular incidents. I remember going to the swimming pool and a white father telling his white kid he couldn’t play with me, things like that. 

Loretta Stephens-Smith:  
And then it just clicks in your mind and it’s something you’re conscious of forever. Before that you were completely oblivious to it. I’m different, I’m Black. I’m not who I was five minutes ago. A switch goes off and now you have to be aware of this thing for the next 80, 90, 100 years.  

The conversation continues in Part II.

This multi-part feature is part of a series entitled "Candid Conversations," roundtable discussions hosted by the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in collaboration with the Marketing and Communications Department. Each will focus on a topic connected to diversity, equity and/or inclusion.