Reader Responses to Back to Brooklyn
Read the storyWe like to hear your thoughts. Click below to send us your feedback.
Send feedbackXochitl Gonzalez remembers the “shame and anger” she felt when she and other students of color at Brown were told by white students to dial down the hip-hop music and late-night talking. “It took me years to understand that … these students were implying that their comfort superseded our joy,” she wrote in her essay, “Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?” I was surprised to learn that “quiet” is a “white thing.” I always thought that quiet was as preferable to noise as the alleviation of pain is to pleasure, that noise is simply an audible form of pollution. Has Xochitl not heard about the impairment of young people’s hearing because of overexposure to noise? Isn’t it going a bit far to racialize quiet?
Anne Schulz Brown Faculty Providence, R.I.
