Times have obviously changed—the class of 2012 is almost perfectly split by gender, 11 percent African American and 10 percent latino. Sixty-three percent of Amherst students receive some form of financial aid. This change has brought on both challenges and opportunities for the student body, many of which Aries tries to tackle in her soon-to-be-released book, “Race and Class Matters at an Elite College.”
“I see this as meant to be a start of a conversation,” said Aries. “I don’t have definitive answers, but I’m telling this very much through the voices of students on this campus.”
The book is told through the voices of 58 students from the class of 2009, all of whom were extensively interviewed and surveyed by Aries at the start and conclusion of their first year at Amherst. Aries targeted students of four different categories—affluent whites, affluent blacks, lower class whites and lower class blacks—with the intention of using her results for some scholarly articles. However, after sifting through her data, she realized that only a book would suffice to recount all her findings.
From the dining hall, to the classroom, to the party scene, Aries’ book describes how issues of class and race permeate the campus.
In so many cases, said Aries, stereotypes and perceptions get in the way of meaningful discourse on diversity. For example, Aries described the perception among some white participants in her study that black students are self-segregating, as evidenced by certain predominately black tables in the dining hall. Yet, according to Aries, these perceptions are not only misinformed, but warped too. “Nobody notices that there’s a table of white students sitting together,” said Aries, adding, “[blacks] are only nine percent of the campus, and they could simply form close friendships with each other, and that could be it. But that’s not what’s going on here.”
Continued Aries, “The blacks could simply primarily surround themselves with friends of their own race, and they don’t … but I think they’re perceived more, because you see these tables of black [students].”
In her study, Aries asked all four groups of students the races of their closest friends. She found that by and large, black students had more white friends than white students had black friends. Perhaps more significantly, she found that lower income whites have many more black friends than do affluent whites. “[Lower income students] have got to get out of their comfort levels more and connect to other people,” proposed Aries. Affluent white students, her findings suggest, aren’t compelled to do much reaching out to find friends with similar backgrounds.
To that end, Aries found that low income whites had the most unease coming into college as to how they would fit in socially. “The lower income whites don’t have a way to immediately recognize one another, so they came in with the most anxiety over what class was going to mean for them socially.”
One stereotype Aries said she was surprised to find was with respect to the more moneyed classes on campus. “One thing I picked up was the enormous amount of stereotypes about the very wealthy on this campus. There seems to be a freedom of talking about this group,” she said. “People seem to know you don’t say politically incorrect things about people who are black or people who are poor. But people, it seems like, feel free to say derogatory things about people who are very wealthy.”
And with these stereotypes—whether they target the wealthy, poor, athletic or black—come great burdens, said Aries. “[Low income students] are so appreciative of the opportunity that Amherst College has given them. They’re also up against these stereotypes. There’s a lot of discourse on this campus about low income students, talked about as ‘they,’ you know, that they’re underperformed, that they can’t do math and they can’t do science. Feeling a burden to have to prove these stereotypes wrong … they carry an extra burden … the burden to have to prove that you merit the place.”
Among these burdens is the pressure many black students feel to speak on behalf of the entire black community. “Black students in the classroom being called on—all eyes on them—are supposed to speak for blacks in general,” Aries found. “They feel very put on the spot to be the educators. They’re one person’s opinion.”
Aries also described the difficult adjustments many low income black and white students must make between their home and school environments, unsure of where exactly they belong. One black student described himself as a sort of “chameleon” having to adjust to fit in with whites or blacks on campus, and then friends back home.
Yet despite the challenges posed by diversity, Aries emphasized the potential it creates for learning, though much of it remains untapped. “There’s an educational opportunity here, in terms of giving students the opportunity to learn from differences,” she said, adding later, “I really feel like we live in a diverse, multicultural society, and I feel that it is important that people learn here to cross these boundaries, to reduce their stereotypes, to learn something about themselves, and people of other races and other classes.”
And while her book does not focus on solutions, but rather on presenting her findings, Aries did offer some suggestions about how Amherst can capitalize on the learning opportunities afforded by its growing diversity. For one, she would like to see a more diverse faculty, not just so minority students have someone to turn to, but also so that affluent white students can see that there are first-rate professors of all races and classes.
Furthermore, Aries said, we simply need more open discussion on campus diversity. “What happens is there are all these resentments on this campus. You know, ‘You got in here because you play football, you got in here because you’re black, you got in here because you’re a legacy.’ And I feel like it is important that if we are going to be a diverse community, if we are going to be a welcoming community, we have to, as a community, embrace this.”