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Bryan-College Station is Codeword for Black-White
“This is not Jasper, Texas.”
I have heard that phrased used more than once, in conversations referring to how Bryan and College Station are not as racist as other places. That phrase is actually ridiculous when you think about it because it is comparison based on what is well known as the location of one of the most racist events in recent history. What that phrase is really saying is that there are racist here but we have not yet dragged anyone behind a truck.
When you listen to conversations or read the comment sections on the local newspaper you will see code words. These are words that are used in place of the racial epitaphs and the racist language, and give people of privilege the plausibility deniability of saying that they are not racist. Even the names of the cities, Bryan and College Station, have themselves been turned into code words.
People who live in College Station often times tend to describe Bryan as if it is inferior, they describe Bryan as if it is not worthy of being so close in proximity to College Station. These same people, who often times live in upper middle class mostly white neighborhoods in College Station, who will talk about how much crime there is in Bryan and how much gang activity happens in Bryan. They speak about how bad the neighborhoods are and how you should not live there or drive through them, neighborhoods that they would not drive through not because of crime but because of the people that they see when they happen to not be able to avoid driving through them. What they really want to say is that Bryan is filled with black people.
There is another code word that has entered the vocabulary: Katrina. After Hurricane, Katrina devastated New Orleans thousands of people where left homeless. A significant amount of the people who fled New Orleans migrated to Houston, and a portion of those people migrated to Bryan-College Station. Who were these people? Many of the people left homeless and forced to leave their city were black people, and many of them were poor black people now made even poorer because their lives had been uprooted.
There are people who say that crime is more prevalent in Bryan “after Katrina.” What this actually means is crime is more prevalent in Bryan after more black people moved to Bryan. The ironic thing about this statement is statistically the crime rate in Bryan has actually fallen since 2005; there have been fewer rapes, less assaults, less burglaries, and fewer thefts. There have been more murders, but the perception was probably accentuated by the fact that in 2004 there was not a murder in Bryan. So, when there were six murders in 2005 and 2006 and four murders in 2007, and murders tend to get significantly more coverage in the media than do any other crimes, it had the psychological impact of suggesting that there is more crime in Bryan after Katrina than there was before. However, even if there was more crime in Bryan after Katrina that does not change the fact that Katrina would still be a code word for black.
The truth is that this community would rather ignore its own racist reality than acknowledge it; this community would rather separate itself from the black community than accept it. The proof is in one imaginary line, the line that separates Texas House of Representatives District 14 from District 17. This line runs right through the middle of Northern Bryan, a line that separates the predominately black neighborhoods of Bryan from the predominately white neighborhoods. Districts are drawn, or should be drawn, because the people of those districts have a shared community, common interests, they have common problems. What then exactly does the community of people that live in Northern Bryan have in common with the five rural counties that encompass District 17? This line was drawn because of the belief that black voters general vote Democrat, and if you can segregate a significant portion of the black community then you can ensure that the white community will maintain the status quo. Also, by segregating the black community in with another large mostly white community you can completely disenfranchise them and not have to acknowledge their problems at all.
The racial divide in this community runs long and deep, and what makes it worse is that we have separated ourselves and defined our communities without having to use the words that readily identify it as racism.