We are NOT Tourist Attractions

Being Black in a predominately white school has proven to be difficult, but this idea wasn’t internalized by other students or faculty until the height of police brutality and anti-Black racism in 2020. Until recently, racism was viewed through an overt, macro lens and not a micro one. 

Disclaimer: This photo is from Ryerson University. (4/14/2022)

A repeated microaggression that is constantly faced in predominantly white institutions is the exploitation and the tokenization of BIPOC students. More specifically, the marketing of BIPOC bodies. A common sentiment amongst Black students goes as follows:

“When I saw the admissions viewbook and videos of the campus, the institution seemed diverse, where I wouldn’t be the only one who looked the way that I did. I found that to be a complete lie.”

The issue of falsely depicting an institution to be more diverse than the reality is a relevant issue at both the high school level and higher education. Black students at predominantly white institutions have experienced harassment and pressure from photographers and videographers that have been brought to the campus by the marketing team. 

Credit @ Pinterest

The solution to tokenism and exploitation is simple: photographers and videographers need to be given and agree to expectations set forth by the institution. A clear guideline should be made by institutions and marketing teams regarding media involving students for marketing purposes.

For example, these guidelines could offer a protocol by which institutions require mandatory training surrounding marketing and tokenism prior to media makers’ presence on campus. When on campus, institutions should allocate designated space and time for photography and videography, and inform students and faculty prior to the date. This would alleviate the pressures that BIPOC students face when videographers and photographers have access to all spaces on the campus. 

Videographers and photographers on campus should be striving to create candid and unstaged videos/pictures for admission-sponsored media. Unfortunately, more often than not the photos in admissions viewbooks are constructed scenes. The students featured in the media do not accurately represent the student body population which should be the main goal reinforced to media makers on campus. 

In the case that a student has expressed they do not give consent to be featured in media, but were featured in published media, institutions should financially compensate students whose consent has been violated. Further publications of this media should be halted. 

BIPOC students are tired of their faces being exploited, marketed, and profited from. It is time for institutions to outline specific policies that hold marketing teams accountable, establish clear expectations, revise media making, and financially compensate the students whose consent has been disregarded.