When I came to Nobles, they told me there was a freshman alcove, a sophomore alcove, a junior alcove, a senior alcove and a black alcove.
— A Noble and Greenough freshman
When the Local Motion shuttle bus from the Forest Hills T-stop arrives at the school, the Black Alcove fills quickly. All of the Noble and Greenough students who take public transportation come from Boston; almost all are students of color. When they first enter the school many head immediately for the Black Alcove. The faces in the all-school photographs of the classes of 1922–23, 1924–25, and 1926–27 peer down at the Black Alcove with Mayflower assuredness; they are all male and all white.
Teo Barros '03 wrote this about the Black Alcove for his final English paper of the year:
This (the existence of the Black Alcove) indicates that minority students throughout the school feel disconnected and by coming together they are creating their own comforting environment like the white kids are doing.
Jesse saunters by the Alcove. African American, he has a quick and sometimes caustic wit. He is bright yet seems unwilling to compromise either his sense of rebellion or his disdain for the Nobles culture in order to succeed here. Instead of going to the library, he is a fixture in the Black Alcove. At the disastrous conclusion of his junior year the faculty votes to place him on Step 3 academic status, in effect asking him to leave the school. (Like many of the students in this article, Jesse is a composite of several different Nobles students, and so his name appears with no graduation year after it. Teo Barros '03, who is several times cited here, is an actual Nobles student.)
Francisco is Latino and yet readily accepted in the Black Alcove. He finds in this alcove the urban experience and culture that he cannot find in the sophomore class alcove, which is divided by a wall into two major groups: the "cool" group of athletic boys and attractive girls, many of whom share the desire for good grades, high parental expectations, and a home address in Weston, Wellesley or West Newton, and another group, whose interest in art and Harvard Square (or whose lack of interest in athletics) separates them from their classmates. In both groups, the conversation can evolve into talk of Caribbean vacations or summer homes on the Cape or the latest from the Dave Matthews Band. There is little to engage Francisco in either group so he migrates down the hall to the Black Alcove in order to find the Nobles community that most nearly allows him to be himself.
Rashad, another sophomore, is African American and Muslim. He often checks in at the Black Alcove as he comes back from lunch and again at the end of the day. Rashad, a fine football player, is popular among his white classmates. More importantly, Rashad has been at Noble and Greenough since the seventh grade. His brothers, recent graduates, are at Penn and Howard. Rashad is able to move back and forth between the two alcoves. His classmates value him as one of the school's preeminent athletes and as an established member of the social scene. Meanwhile, his name, race, and Muslim faith provide him a ready entree into the Black Alcove.
Serena and Jasmine are seniors and are inseparable. They were inseparable even during their school year abroad, when as juniors they sought time away from the school. Determined and focused, these young women are the female intellectual force in the Black Alcove. While the seemingly indifferent attitude of some of the boys can sometimes confirm teachers' low expectations of them and provoke a further unwillingness on their part to confront or to care, the language and tone of the girls are energetic and intellectual and counter the laconic manner of the boys. Serena and Jasmine talk school, literature, history, politics, and race. They want to write, to be investment bankers, to practice law, and now they want to react to Nobles as culture and place.
Ty is quiet but his presence is commanding nonetheless. He is 6'7" and one of the best basketball players that the school has had in many years. Originally from Boston, he came to Nobles from Lexington High School, where as a freshman "Metco" student he started on the basketball team. In these suburban high schools, public and private, he has always been the stereotyped black basketball player – but the stereotype also represents a personal dream. Even in his junior year, college coaches are already visiting campus to "work him out." His athletic identity has enabled him to avoid focusing on his studies and has enabled the adults in the school to be indifferent to his intellect and his GPA... until now, that is.
Gary spends more time at Nobles than perhaps any other student. He is a member of the small boarding community that is the most diverse pocket of the Nobles population. He also attends the UMass–Boston Upward Bound summer program located at Nobles and so is on campus for six weeks in July and August. The UB community is 95 percent students of color and it is during UB that Gary feels most comfortable at Nobles. At the end of his junior year, Gary wins the Bond Prize for Academic Improvement by raising his GPA from C-minus to B.
For one young woman, the choice has been to avoid the Black Alcove despite her biracial identity. Violet's "place" in the senior alcove is close by the Black Alcove, yet separated by a wall that provides the Black Alcove its intimacy. Most, if not all, of her friends are white; Violet lives in the suburbs and drives to school in a BMW. Perhaps she avoids the Black Alcove to distance herself and to establish herself as intellectual or social as opposed to black. She may find a part of her identity in the Black Alcove, but not necessarily the part that will get her the most mileage at a school like Nobles. However, Violet is aware of the complications of race and she has written about her biracial identity and otherwise confronted the question: "What are you, anyway?" The question in its very simplicity defines the power of race as socially constructed identification. Should she be with those who share her African-American heritage, an identification which will always eclipse her "white" identity in others' perceptions of her? Time will tell.
Three eighth grade boys, Jason, Alex, and Matt, stop by the alcove almost daily, on their way to or returning from lunch. African American and Latino, they come by to talk and to connect with the models that they do not have in their separate middle school, which has fewer students and faculty of color than the upper school. In the Black Alcove for a brief time they are among other students who share their race, ethnicity, and culture in ways both simple and profound. By visiting the Black Alcove, these three friends grow their "community" beyond themselves and when they move into the upper school, they will undoubtedly claim space in the Black Alcove and continue to maintain it as a fixture in Nobles' institutional "real estate."
What might be the response of the classes of 1922–23, 1924–25, and 1926–27 to this territorial claim by students of color? More importantly, what will the responses to the Black Alcove be from the classes of 2005, 2010, and 2025?
Nobles' Alcove Culture = White
The Black Alcove is so visible because it stands in stark contrast to the rest of Noble and Greenough, which may define itself as racially neutral but which, in reality, is unconsciously appraised and claimed as white space.
The majority white culture of the Nobles community predominates in all of the other hallway alcoves. The claiming of school space by the white majority also occurs through photographs, plaques, the names of buildings and, of course, through the accepted and expected clustering of those students who are white and often wealthy. Surrounded by each other, white students at Nobles find a comforting extension of their families, neighborhoods, and circles of friends in the hallway alcoves. Everywhere around them there is an unintended and undiscussed, yet powerful affirmation of their racial majority. Even when it is noted, this clustering of white students is perceived as normal in an independent school and the ownership of independent school space and culture by white students and faculty may be troubling to faculty and administrators at schools like Nobles in light of the good news regarding the growing diversity in their student bodies. Noble and Greenough currently has 18 percent students of color and returning alumni/ae of color invariably notice positive changes in this area.
Ironically, while the Black Alcove is perceived as a sign of racial clustering, the other alcoves are never identified as "white." In these alcoves, students of color are often acutely cognizant of the racial difference between themselves and their peers. Meanwhile, few white students ever enter the Black Alcove for any length of time and those who do submit to a radical adjustment in their status — they are in the minority in the Black Alcove. Because of their hesitation to enter, white students (and faculty) never attain an enlightened view of the experience faced by students of color. Without contact and understanding, white students rely upon what they have already learned — racial falsehoods and assumptions that inform their reactions and confirm their expectations. Is the overall white majority student response to the Black Alcove racist or merely racially aware? Clearly, the white response is both.
Teo Barros '03 speaks to this problem of white perception of the Black Alcove:
When asked to write down some of the stereotypes about black people, a group that was primarily constructed of white students wrote down — "dangerous" as one of their stereotypes and that blacks always hung around other blacks. Immediately the thought of where many of the minority students hang out came to mind and later, due to the incident that happened to a friend of mine, the sad realization that many of the white students feel unsafe to sit in the black dominated alcove sank in.
The 'black alcove,' although it is not, comes to look menacing since it looks like the black students do not accept anyone else but other black students. This can falsely support claims like the ones made by the group of white students regarding stereotypes.
The interesting part about all this is that the Black Alcove is given more attention since it seems to intimidate many of the white kids... a friend of mine, like myself and my other friends, has a white friend who on a particular day felt scared to ask him what some class' homework was since she had never been to the 'black alcove.'
Some white students at Noble and Greenough, as well as some teachers and parents, may come to see the Black Alcove as exclusive or unwelcoming. From that point it is not far for them to the rationalization of "reverse discrimination" or an assumption that you have to be "Black" to be welcome in the Black Alcove. These convenient justifications allow those in the majority to accuse those in the minority of exclusion and prejudice.
However, the notion of racial exclusion has little to do with the reality of the Black Alcove and far more to do with white perceptions of it. White students at Nobles see the Black Alcove as reserved for students of color because they all too often do not view themselves as racial beings. Instead race is reserved for the identification and behavior of the "other" and at Nobles the "other" is frequently the students of the Black Alcove.
Back to the Black Alcove
For some students of color, primarily but not exclusively African American, the Black Alcove is a necessary sanctuary from Nobles' larger, louder, and more privileged white culture. The Black Alcove is a place in which students of different age groups and with diverse interests gather. While the Black Alcove is in the area of the hallway that has evolved into junior and senior space, many of the students who consistently congregate in the Black Alcove are sophomores. Although it is more urban and less materialistic than the other alcoves, class and geography also enter into the formation of the Black Alcove's membership — it is not simply a racial arrangement. Ultimately, in the safety of the Black Alcove, "minority" representation and status caused by race, as well as class, are far less in play than anywhere else on campus and so diverse students of color congregate there.
Some of those students who frequent the Black Alcove are of course "Black," but they are not all African American. They are all identified as Black in the naming of the alcove because Black translates as race at Noble and Greenough, and in America. Many of the Black Alcove's students are Hispanic, Caribbean, Cape Verdean, Indian, and European in ancestry and some are biracial.
It is a multicultural community, but membership can come at a price, as Teo Barros notes:
As a Cape Verdean with dark complexion, the association with African Americans is almost expected. Though not offensive since the relation with African Americans is stronger compared with one with white Americans, it does cause disappointment since a feeling of individuality is stripped away.
The Black Alcove is not a complete affirmation or representation of all members' specific race and culture. In particular, the Black Alcove is not a space towards which Asian-American students of Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese descent will gravitate. The Black Alcove has a culture of its own that does not translate for all "Students of Color." This phenomenon reminds us that the experiences and the spaces necessary for survival and satisfaction in an independent school are not the same for all students who are not white, suburban, and wealthy.
The Black Alcove cannot meet all the needs of all students of color nor should it be expected to, but it does meet a need for many students of color and so must be nurtured and protected. Its existence is to a certain extent a de facto indictment of the diversity initiatives of Nobles, and calls into question the supposed "sea changes" over the past 20 years, for it is still a school in which eight of every 10 students are white.
In a student body that is only 6 percent African American, the Black Alcove is an affinity response by students who are aware, both consciously and unconsciously, of the need to find a racially specific community to limit the powerful wedge of race. There is a polar, if not polarized, view of diversity at our schools and not surprisingly, students of color gather with those who see their academic world similarly, and so the Black Alcove and other areas where students of color cluster — a section of a dorm, a team, cafeteria tables — emerge out of need. While some white students may see the Black Alcove as exclusive, disruptive or defiant — an obstacle to pass by or an awkward moment during admissions tours — what it provides its members is sanctuary, friendship, and community; exactly what we hope all of our students will find at Nobles.
The Black Alcove exists as a visible reality and as an opportunity for Noble and Greenough sincerely to address issues of race. The Black Alcove must be preserved, demystified and incorporated into the larger school hallway culture so that the experiences of African-American students and others who see this space as their haven are understood, honored, and included. Otherwise the Black Alcove, as well as other independent school clusters of students of color, will be a space to be feared, stereotyped, and avoided by the white majority and our schools will create separate and unequal worlds.
Finally...
Discussing aversive racism, Paula Chu has spoken of students of color as the "canaries" of independent schools, alluding to the use of the birds as early detectors of poisonous gas in coal mines. Her point is that students of color and their concerns, questions, suggestions, and occasional rebellions are warnings about an independent school culture that still holds pockets of "poisonous air" that create a racially divisive atmosphere and experience for all students. If the underlying needs of the Black Alcove are ignored, deflected, and dismissed, then all of our students will breathe racially poisonous air for years to come. Beyond the solution of enrolling and hiring more students and faculty of color, and changes in the curriculum, lie the answers of greater interest in and acceptance of the clustering of students of color. The white majority at Nobles, faculty as well as students, must respectfully acknowledge the Black Alcove and carefully listen to the songs of its members.
A Postscript
Like many other diversity initiatives in independent schools, both formal and informal, the Black Alcove was dependent upon the students who maintained its existence and its presence. Many of the students who frequented the Black Alcove have now graduated, and the Black Alcove, along with what it represented, has left with them. Now, under the watchful eyes of the classes of 1922–1927, white students sit and study in that space.