Comparative American Studies Necessary Major at OC

To the Editor:

I am going to talk about why I think we need CAS as a major at Oberlin. It is only my first year here and everything I have experienced in and outside of the classroom, points to a need for Comparitive American Studies. CAS challenges white normativity and hetero-normativity, something that many believe is not a problem at Oberlin because many times, if not all the time, it is percieved as a “visual disease.” Having this campus look diverse, in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, is far from having a campus that is not ignorant, a campus that is anti-racist, a campus that is meeting all the needs of all its students. After all, a multi-cultural institution is definitely not always an anti-racist institution.
In my eyes CAS would accomplish two main things: one, offer institutional support and accountability for students of color and queer students. Most of the learning I’ve experienced this year has been outside the classroom. The OKSA conference, the Hip-Hop Conference, Transgendered Awareness Week, the Indigineous Womens Series –– all student-initiated, student-run events that pertain to the needs of specific communities and also pertain to everyone on this campus because it’s the education that we’re not getting in the classroom. I’m not saying that the classroom can give us everything or should, because it can’t possibly do so, however it is not fair that the students do all the work and the College’s support is limited to financial support not institutional. Why is Colors of Rhythm not just something we want to do to celebrate our cultures, but something we have to do because only western dance form is institutionally supported? Why are institutional resources for Asian Americans, Latino students and Natives so limited or non-existent? CAS will help these concerns, and validate them as well, as our history and presence and existence will be acknowledged, and be deemed worth learning. This brings me to the second thing I think CAS will accomplish.
It will help combat the ignorance on this campus. CAS accounts for what we didn’t learn –– it ends exceptionalism, because people of color aren’t additives, we’re not just affected by “white man’s” history, we are apart of history. African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, queer people are a part of American history. To quote the CAS letter of intent, “These new fields (i.e., African-American Studies, Ethnic Studies including Asian Pacific Americans, Latinos, Queer Studies) have discredited previous assumptions of a monolithic American identity and perhaps, more significantly, advanced our knowledge of how race, class, gender, sexuality and nation have defined and denied access to power and privilege in American society.” (see page 2)

In my first year, I have witnessed and unfortunately have had many personal encounters with ignorance that has been draining and hurtful. The comparisons that have been made to racism and homophobia, the utter lack of knowledge or understanding of how deep, how painful, how widespread and institutionalized racism and homophobia is, has been mind-boggling. Too many letters to the Review have been written, attacking safe space, calling the concerns and needs expressed by people of color invalid or obsession with identity politics or concerns that only make sense outside of Oberlin because in this bubble, there is no racism, no sexism, no homophobia. All of this is ignorance.

Oberlin talks about its students changing the world. That seems very problematic when the knowledge and support that is necessary to understand ourselves and our history and our society, is not there.

–Julie Dulani
College first-year