NYU Florence’s Southern Bell
Workplace Racism with Venom and a Smile
I remember the first time Connie Vivoli made me cry. It was in 2018. I was in our Office of Student Life in the lower annex, where she is stationed. In front of my office mates, she started being nasty about something that, from what I remember, was not a particularly big issue. I remember feeling confused and not understanding why there was so much venom in her words. I spoke to my colleague Julian Lonsdale (nicknamed by some ‘The Colonial’) about it with tears in my eyes. There was no reaction in his face. He said nothing.
Connie is passive aggressive and viscerally reminds me of the kind of spiteful racism we have in the UK. I made excuses for her initially because:
1. She was my elder, and my Ghanaian reserve and British working-class upbringing induces in me an almost automatic deference to those I perceive to be my mother’s age-mates
2. because, on a professional level, I did not want to cause problems and wanted to keep my job. It was easier to internalize the abuse.
I came to understand that this was what one of our student Peer Advisors called ‘Typical Southern behaviour.’
One day a student Peer Advisor, who Connie often mistook me for (We are both Black- this is literally where the similarity ends), came to the upper annex of the office where my office space was. She told me that Connie was being mean to her again and that although she did not want to complain, it was getting to her and she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Like all our peer advisors, she had to complete a certain amount of hours in the office every week, and this meant working very closely with Connie.
Though I know that this is nothing new for those students who are not White, the fact that young adults are dealing with the racism from adults in positions of authority, in an educative environment, really messes with me. This student must have been no more that 19 or 20 at the time.
I consoled her, said it was not personal and that next time she was getting that passive aggressive racialised nastiness from Connie, to excuse herself for a coffee and come up to see me for a chat when needed. My work station was in the coffee and tea machine area, and therefore, the unofficial chat area. I told her at some point she may need to — politely, because we know it can’t be us getting justifiably angry — address the issue with Connie. I told her that I would speak to Mary Barbera, the Office manager, and that something would get done.
Believing that either of my proposed solutions would enact change was my first mistake.
I was only a few months into my job at this point and still in the honeymoon phase. I thought that if I spoke to the office Manager she would actually have a chat with Connie and kindly put her straight. It was out of order that this student had to feel so uncomfortable at work and treated so appallingly. There was clear racialised disparate treatment at play and I made sure to tell Mary that.
“Connie speaks to everyone like that,” was Mary’s response. I was completely deflated. I went in armed with the student’s comments and l hoped that something would be done. On a completely selfish level, the nice thing was I was not shouted at that day, but I could see that Mary had taken a mental note that I may become ‘a problem’, which indeed she later referred to me as being.
Two other peer advisors of colour spoke to me about Connie that semester on a few occasions prior to my speaking to Mary. They both had experience going to school and living in the Southern US. One of them told me that making nasty, hateful comments ‘with a smile’ is very Southern Bell-like behaviour. Another said that it was ‘typical’ and that they had to deal with that from White teachers and staff when in school. Over the two years of my working at NYU Florence, other staff and students made similar complaints about Connie’s behaviour.
It was only in December 2019/January 2020 that Connie’s behaviour began to change towards me, but not necessarily towards the students of colour. It was around that time that I told Mary I was beginning to lose my hair from the stress that came from the racism I had to endure in the office.
I remember Mary blankly telling me that she too had lost her hair from the stress of the job, almost as though I should not complain- just an occupational hazard, if you will. You could always bank on Mary one-upping you on your compliant. Woe is Barbera.
What is sad is that I was ever so happy that Connie’s nastiness had yielded somewhat towards me. So shocked was I that I spoke to Mary about it.
‘I had a chat with her’
Wow, I thought. She finally did her job. It only took my becoming gravely depressed and losing my hair for her to have a chat that could have easily been done in 2018 when this shit first started.
Whiteness jars. Whiteness protects its young at all costs. As a White person, if you are not in some form or fashion, a co-conspirator, behind-the-scenes talker and/or planner, your silence is complicity in harming others who have more to lose.
I have it on good authority that Connie is still enacting her spitefulness with a smile. When I called New York University an American colony with Planation-like dynamics, this is a very small example of why. In the Big house that is NYU, they need overseers like Connie and Mary to keep the rest of us in line. And some of them are paid a pretty penny for their chosen role.
With all the institutional gaslighting that New York University inflicts, they would do well to be reminded of their own Racist American history. Lest we forget, it was the morally upright enslaved who strategised to burn those plantations to the ground.
Archive of NYU Racism, Colourism and other workplace abuses- https://www.instagram.com/a.abena2019/?hl=it
Audio of Town Hall upon NYU Florence student’s (Fall 2020)complaints about racism I made public on Say Your Mind Podcast-https://www.instagram.com/p/CNcrnEin8lG/
