Black@Exeter Discusses Account’s Mission

By Tina Huang, Anya Tang, Clark Wu and Hansi Zhu

“Welcome to Black at Exeter.” On June 14, these words were posted by an anonymous account on the social media platform Instagram. @BlackatExeter, which features anonymously-submitted experiences of Black students, faculty, and alumni, circulated quickly among both past and present Exonians. In the two weeks since their first post, @BlackatExeter has featured nearly 200 submissions and gained over 4000 followers.

The creation of @BlackatExeter follows that of similar accounts, prefixed @Blackat, that provide a space for Black members of predominately-white educational institutions to share their experiences of racial bias and discrimination. Such accounts, including @BlackatExeter, have received national and international attention, including coverage from Good Morning America, The New York Times, CNN and The Daily Mail.  

An Interview with the Creators 

In an interview with The Exonian, @BlackatExeter described the mission of their account. “Black students at Exeter, or any other predominantly white institution, for that matter, face countless micro- and macro-aggressions along with racism during their time at school,” the creators said. “Instead of actively enforcing change to ensure that all members of their communities feel safe, welcome and appreciated, what these institutions will often do is target Black individuals who dare to speak up about the injustices they face while gaslighting and invalidating their experiences.”

“This page serves as a voice for the silenced Black Exonians to share their experiences and bring light to the issue of racism at PEA without being targeted and gaslighted. Time and time again, Exeter has made promises to solve these issues that it has not kept,” they said. “By publicly sharing these experiences, the institution can no longer delay the inevitable task of addressing and putting a stop to racism on campus.”

“In order to solve the problem of racism at Exeter, it is not the responsibility of the oppressed to change and teach the non-BIPOC community how to do the work required to become anti-racist,” they continued. “We believe this onus falls on those who have perpetuated white supremacy and its symptoms for centuries. They need to commit themselves to become not only ‘not racist’ but anti-racist as well.”

“By bringing light to the racist experiences of Black individuals at the Academy, we are creating an opportunity for non-Black Exonians to learn and reflect on the times when they may have contributed to the anti-Black racism on campus that made Black students and faculty feel unsafe, uncomfortable, unwelcome, unseen, hurt, etc.,” they said. “We hope that they will learn to stand against it and become allies to BIPOC students at the Academy. That is the ultimate goal of this page.”

@BlackatExeter also cited other @Blackat accounts as inspiration for their work. “We knew that [predominantly-white institutions] have a history of targeting BIPOC students and faculty who dare to speak up about the injustices they face at school, and for that reason, we could not speak up directly. Then, we saw the page @blackatbrearley on Instagram,” they said. “That page inspired not only us, but the whole blackat__ movement on Instagram as it proved to us there is, in fact, a way to affect positive change regarding the issue of racism at Exeter.”

Other @Blackat accounts offered practical advice in addition to inspiration. “We created the page and reached out to @blackatbrearley, @blackatandover and other preexisting blackat__ pages on Instagram for advice on getting traction for the page. After conversing with other blackat__ pages, we were able to come up with a plan for the page and it quite rapidly took off and gained traction,” they added. @Blackat accounts have shared other schools’ posts on their temporary Instagram stories, and many continue to comment on each others’ posts. 

Though the account has gained schoolwide and even national attention, creators have not changed their plans or process. “We have mostly adhered to our original strategy for running this page. We did not start this page for publicity or to be a space where people can be a voyeur of Black trauma testimonies,” they said. “We started it as a safe space for Black voices and plan to remain true to that mission.”

The creators of the account remain anonymous due to the risk of retaliation. “Our anonymity is vital to this operation, as Exeter has a history of targeting BIPOC who dare to speak up against the racism that occurs at the institution,” they said. “Therefore, we are unable to disclose any specific details regarding our identities.”

Given its role as a space for Black voices, the account holds a few guidelines on what it does and does not post. “We have been posting just about everything, with the exception of submissions that do not recount stories but instead make statements or that attack this movement,” they said. “For example, we chose not to post a submission that stated, “f[**]k y’all n[******]” with a class year of 1863.”

To date, only one post has been taken down from the account. “We have taken down one post at the behest of the original submitter. After much debate, we decided to respect the submitter’s wishes,” they said. 

As part of their mission, @BlackatExeter names some faculty members in their posts. “We decide to publish a faculty member’s name when there are corroborating submissions regarding that same person,” they said. “This is evident if one were to take a look at our page and come across multiple submissions involving the exact same person. The goal of including faculty names is to hold those individuals accountable for their words and actions that have or continue to negatively impact current and former members of the Black community at Exeter.”

Including certain identities will ideally spur action, @BlackatExeter noted. “It is our hope that the individual faculty members mentioned on our page take the time to do some soul searching about the submissions and learn to do better for current and future Exonians,” they said. “We also hope that the Academy engages those individuals and holds them accountable.”

However, the account has a different approach to student anonymity. “While we have made the decision to include faculty names in our posts, we do not include student names that are mentioned in submissions. For cases when specific students are mentioned, we redact names,” they said. “Later, we contact the individual when possible, explaining that they were mentioned in a post while providing a hyperlink to that specific post and asking them to do better.”

@BlackatExeter’s comments page has seen both supportive and critical responses to the account. Some Instagram users have named previously-redacted students and faculty members in comments; others have attempted to gaslight submitters by making them question their own experiences. “We have decided that we will not police the comments section as it is a place for the community to hold open discourse about the content of the posts,” @BlackatExeter said.

The creators clarified the portion of the Exeter community that the account stands for. “While our page focuses mainly on Black voices, we want everyone to know that we stand in solidarity with all other marginalized individuals and groups at the Academy,” they said. “We hear you and we see you.”

The account will continue running as long as the need exists within the Exeter community. “We will continue to serve as a voice for silenced Black Exonians and plan to continue to hold individuals and the Academy accountable for changing the racist culture on campus. We hope that the horrific testimonies posted on our page will prompt Exeter to finally do the difficult work and take action to bring about a meaningful change to the anti-Black racist culture at PEA.”

Administrators and Club Leaders Respond

As the account gained traction, Dr. Stephanie Bramlett issued Exeter’s first response to @BlackatExeter, posted on Phillips Exeter’s official Instagram account. “I want to acknowledge the anguished, frustrated and painful stories that Black students and alums have shared based on their experiences at Exeter.... While some of the details are new, the stories reflect decades of anti-Black racism at the Academy,” she wrote. “We will be using these testimonies, along with dozens of other letters and expressions of hurt, as we work to engage the entire community in making an action plan for a better, more inclusive Exeter.”

In her post, Bramlett outlined several initiatives to promote anti-racism at the Academy. “Last week, our faculty were charged with redesigning their classes to reflect our school commitment to antiracism including: centering the voices and experiences of people of color in course reading and materials, honoring the cultural backgrounds that students bring into their courses and naming systemic racism and its symptoms as they manifest both in the classroom and beyond,” she wrote. Faculty, staff, proctors and Student Listeners will receive additional mandatory anti-racism training.

“Exeter is committed to racial equity and lasting change. We will do better,” she continued.

Despite Bramlett’s statements, students, alumni and other Instagram users commented that the Academy’s response was insufficient. Commenters also noted that the Academy had not been proactive in dealing with issues of racism.

On June 26, Principal Bill Rawson sent out another response to @BlackatExeter, detailing additional proposals for addressing racial inequity. The action items involved monitoring the @BlackatExeter account to offer student support, reaching out to faculty and departments named on the account, tracking student and alumni stories and developing an anonymous bias reporting tool. 

“Over the last two and a half weeks, I have been working with the administrative team and trustees to develop a number of concrete initiatives to act on the commitments that the trustees and I made in our June 5 letter,” Rawson added. Rawson promised to meet with Black Students of Excellence, the 53rd Afro-Latinx Exonian Society Board, and Student Council leadership over the summer to further discuss the Academy’s next steps.

“Every member of the administrative leadership team is actively involved, and we will continue this important work throughout the summer,” he concluded in his letter. “Anti-racist work is the most important work that we can be doing together as a school community.”

The Exonian contacted Rawson for comment; he directed reporters to his all-student email. 

In addition to school-wide issues, @BlackatExeter has also highlighted racism in the Academy’s clubs, including The Exonian and Model United Nations. Both clubs have dealt with racially charged statements and a lack of diversity. The Exonian was additionally criticized for misidentifying a Black female Athlete of the Year in its Graduation Issue.

Student leaders in both clubs issued apologies to their mailing lists, listing various measures for improvement. Model United Nations has revised its Code of Conduct, established protocols for inappropriate comments made in club meetings, reviewed its curriculum for cultural stereotyping and committed to training for its board. The Exonian has devoted summer internship funding to anti-racism training for the 142nd Editorial Board.

In the 162 years since the first Black student enrolled at the Academy, Black Exonians continue to face bias and discrimination. Despite these promises of change, some students and alumni remain skeptical. “I was going through my computer the other day, and I found a document that compiled the numerous narratives that we had presented to Principal [Lisa] MacFarlane in 2017,” Charlotte Polk ‘18 said. “It struck me how little change there has been since then. [MacFarlane] had made a lot of promises that she did not keep, and Principal Rawson is continuing that trend.” 

Black Students and Faculty Comment

@BlackatExeter has initiated discourse between Black students and faculty and their non-Black peers and colleagues. “Whether or not the specifics of each story are questioned, they cannot be ignored,” Science Instructor Kadeine Peterson said. “I know that I’ve already had conversations about what has been presented on the site and those conversations are leading to actual change.” 

As the Academy’s only Black science teacher, Peterson related her own experiences at Exeter to the stories of the account. “I follow several blackat__ pages on Instagram, representative of the schools I’ve worked at previously as well as Exeter and Andover,” Peterson said. “The posts that hit me the hardest are ones for which I have had first hand experience with as a faculty member in whichever school the narrative arose from.”

“The most troubling piece to me is the number of my white colleagues, former and current, who are shocked at the posts, given that they have been employed at these places longer than I have yet failed to see what I so obviously did in my much shorter tenure,” Peterson said. “These stories aren’t new.”

Alumni and students expressed relief at a platform to share their experiences. “The timing was perfect for an account like that because people are more likely to listen now,” upper Catherine Uwuakwe said. “Seeing @BlackatExeter made me realize how my experience as a black person on campus was positively impacted by the black people on campus before me and that I'm reaping the benefits of their [efforts to] stand up and educate people.”

Myra Collins ‘19 agreed on the timeliness and urgency of @BlackatExeter. “It is very difficult reading these experiences, especially since I know how some of these students are. Sadly, I can relate to the emotional and mental trauma from these posts but at the same time it is necessary for those to realize racism is real and Exeter is not exempt from it,” she said. “@BlackatExeter is the wake up call that was needed.”

Other Black students found that the posts closely resembled their experiences at the Academy. “Some of the posts are written as if I had written it myself, and some I have never experienced,” upper Hannah Henris said. “But all of the culprits are the same people we should be able to trust on campus. All by the same people we should be learning with and forming lifelong friendships and connections with.”

While students commended @BlackatExeter’s influence, Uwakwe, who checks the account around twice a week, noted the pressure and exhaustion she felt after reading the stories. “I would check more often, but the regular news about Black people in the world right now is already overwhelming.”

Henris additionally voiced her disappointment at the circumstances that necessitated a platform such as @BlackatExeter. “Because of the timing, it feels like our school’s actions are superficial and convenient,” she said. “@BlackatExeter amplified what I always knew—Black students and faculty are being used for diversity points and are not thought of as Exonians."

The stories documented on @BlackatExeter have led some incoming students to rethink their decisions to enroll. “I have been getting the chance to talk to a few incoming black students about their thoughts on the posts,” upper Ifeoma Ajufo said. “A common question that arose was, ‘Given the racist actions of students and faculty, would I ever change my decision to come to Exeter?’”