using the lounge while black
Cherry was invited to teach a graduate critical theory seminar course and conduct graduate studio visits for painting and printmaking grad students during the fall semester. She commutes from New York to Richmond every two weeks to teach at VCU. Last week, she was beginning her day by sending out emails, sitting in the adjunct lounge of the Fine Arts Building. The room is code-access only, for faculty, administration, and graduate students.
As Cherry was working, an older, non-black gentleman entered the lounge.
“I say hello and he sort of comes in, doesn’t do anything, doesn’t verbally acknowledge me and walks back out of the room,” Cherry said.
Minutes later, campus security arrived to ask Cherry to show her VCU identification card. After providing it, Cherry began to absorb what had happened.
“I left the classroom to walk around, and I saw the same gentleman in a classroom. I realized he was a fellow painting and printmaking professor,” Cherry said. “I didn’t know his name, so I looked at him to make sure I could say who it was. I was going to send an email to the chair of my department and tell him what happened.”
Cherry sent an email to Painting and Printmaking Chair Noah Simblist, who apologized for the incident and said they would look into the matter.
After giving security the name of the man she thought made the call, Simblist confirmed it was associate professor Javier Tapia. The reason why Tapia, a Peruvian-born Associate Professor in VCU’s Painting & Printmaking Department, called campus security is still unknown at this point. Tapia did not respond to RVA Magazine’s requests for comment.
“If I didn’t have my ID on me at the time, it would have been possible that I would have been removed from my own classroom — or removed from the building until somebody identified me,” Cherry said.
“It’s a greater issue of what Javier Tapia had to have thought… To think that not only did I not belong in this locked classroom — but that I wasn’t even given the privilege of looking like a graduate student, or any student in the building. I think he was shocked to find out that I was a visiting professor.”
https://rvamag.com/news/community/what-happens-when-a-vcu-employee-calls-security-on-a-black-professor.html
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