808s and Bold Takes Issue 17: Listening to Black Voices - Sala Ba
A conversation with a Black woman on racism in America and more
(Photo courtesy of Sala Ba)
In the first installment of Listening to Black Voices, I spoke to Sala Ba, a rising freshman at Stanford University, on her future plans and her thoughts about what’s going on in America. Full disclosure, Sala is also one of my friends but that did not impact the questions or answers given. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity. This will be the first of multiple issues of Listening to Black Voices so if you want more, subscribe.
V: So Sala, you’re going to Stanford next year for engineering. What drew you to the school and the field of study?
S: I chose to go to Stanford because although it’s a really good school, I never got any stuck-up or elitist vibes from it. Everyone seems laid back and down to earth. It feels like the school really cares about just helping people learn and succeed. It also seems to have a collaborative rather than a competitive environment and I like that a lot. I chose engineering because I like solving problems and working on new breakthroughs to make the world a better place! I also would love to be a part of the development of new technologies and have found that kind of thing to be very interesting for my entire life.
V: I wanted to get your thoughts as a black woman on what’s happening in America. There’s been widespread conversation over the last two weeks and the last decade of police brutality against Black people. These issues are in the mainstream now more than they were in the past, and you grew up in the social media era where these things are shared faster than ever—how has that impacted you?
S: Yeah so I was gonna say I’ve been lucky to be pretty privileged with a lot of stuff, but because of my race I have always been aware of a lot of the issues that people face despite not having to go through a lot of it myself. But I think what’s striking to me about all of this blowing up all of a sudden is how completely unaware a lot of my non-black friends/peers are of all these issues, especially since they all come from the same area that I do. Prior to this, a lot of them didn’t really realize what it meant to be “Black in America” and I know a lot of people were under the impression that racism had “died down” before all of this. I think it’s really good that these people are finally being made to see just how flawed the system is in so many places.
V: What does it mean to you to be Black in America?
S: It’s funny that you ask that because I’ve finally realized that it doesn’t have to mean any ONE thing. There are so many different experiences that fall under the umbrella of being Black in America. But I think what I’ve noticed is common among a lot of us is that people tend to rob us of our chances to make first impressions or people fail to give us the benefit of the doubt. We always have to work twice as hard to be considered for the same things. I feel like I’m constantly having to prove my worth as an individual because people see my skin color first and make a bunch of assumptions that I have to then go back and challenge. These assumptions/no benefit of the doubt happen at different levels all across America and I think sometimes it can be more damaging than other times, but it’s definitely the common thread that all black people have to deal with.
V: Can you give an example of that?
S: yeah! so there’s Tier 1, which is annoying but harmless, which is like when someone assumed I’d enjoy smoking weed more because I’m black, or when people assume I got into Stanford because of affirmative action. Then there’s Tier 2 which is more harmful but not dangerous, like when a school officer assumed I was stealing smth because I was running in the halls, or when parents of a friend assumed I’d be a bad influence and told their child to stop talking to me. Then there’s Tier 3 which could be when a cop assumes an unarmed black teenager is a threat to his life when really the kid is just coming home from the store with his hood up. I’ve never experienced Tier 3.
V: Why do you think you haven’t experienced Tier 3?
S: Because my parents are well off. That said, the truly racist people aren’t asking to see my dad’s tax returns. People just assume right away you’re dangerous, criminal, or uneducated first and then you have to prove them wrong after by showing, “No, I live here, I grew up there, my parents do this” and then they’re like, “oh okay.” Even then, you shouldn’t have to make a lot of money to be treated like a human being.
V: Can you give an example of a time you experienced racism directly?
S: One of my best friends in middle school told me, “My parents didn’t want you to be friends with me until I told them your SAT score and now they’re chill haha”.
I had people say all the time around me “dark” as an insult to each other and then look at me like “no, but for you, it’s fine cause you can’t really help it”.
… Like what in the world am I supposed to think then?
V: I want to bring it back to the current issues, there are protests and riots across the country and a lot of people have been focused on the morality of those riots, what would you say to those people?
S: If the protests don’t cause a real disruption then it’s so easy to just ignore the protests and ignore the problem that people are fighting to solve. and it’s not like they jumped straight to burning down buildings they tried peaceful marches and demonstrations and not only were they criticized (like Colin Kaepernick), the situation never got better for anybody. No new laws were made.
Now when we’ve let it get to the point where everyone is so frustrated and they see lashing out like this as the only way to make real changes then we have no right to call this “immoral”.
What the founding fathers and original civil rights protestors did would count as “looting” but if it’s the only way to get people to listen it’s a necessary “evil”. It’s sad that it got to this point in the first place. It’s like inertia, an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. If people don’t start applying force or pressure nothing’s ever gonna change.
The protests are supposed to make you uncomfortable.
If you have a problem with it then maybe you should’ve taken action to change the system when things were “tame” and “peaceful”. Nobody likes the idea of violence but sometimes people will keep turning a blind eye until you FORCE them to listen
V: Mhm, and we’ve seen that a lot of these protests start peaceful and then turn violent due to police action
S: Yeah, I don’t actually understand that! When the police show up to like pride marches or pro-choice protests it’s to keep the peace, but since the police are the object of the protest, obviously when they show up it’s going to escalate the situation. So why do they come? If it’s a peaceful protest there’s no reason for them to be there. The firemen don’t show up with gasoline, just saying.
V: So you mentioned Kaepernick, and obviously four years ago there was a great deal of uproar over his decision to kneel and in general with the black lives matter movement. However now, there seems to have been a bit of a shift in public opinion, as polling shows the percentage of people who find police brutality to be part of a larger problem to increase, support for defunding the police has increased and there also seems to be more public institutions that are cutting ties with police organizations. That’s a long lead up to a question so here it is.
Do you think what’s happening now is different and will deliver lasting change and why?
S: I don’t really know. Now definitely feels way different than all the other outrage times but I’m not sure if it actually is different or if I’m just older or smarter.
I hope it can be long-lasting change and not just a surface change like how they “got rid” of slavery but made it segregation then “got rid” of segregation but made it police brutality; all just different steps on the same staircase.
Even if what we are currently mad ab now gets solved the problem might not be gone
V: Any last thoughts you’ve got?
S: Black Lives Matter.
Also, please try to understand where others are coming from always and be respectful when explaining your concerns/questions. Just because you don’t understand something right away doesn’t make it wrong/invalid.
V: Thank you for your time, Black Lives Matter ✊🏽.