Identity Politics at Oberlin Continued

Baldwin Responds to Comic
March 16 Letter

To the Editor:

First of all, I don’t think you could compare this [Baldwin] to the segregation in the South because racism is a very different thing. Our program house is about the celebrating and bringing together of women of all different backgrounds. In the three years I’ve lived in Baldwin, I have learned so much about people, and how many different things people can go through. There were dialogues about women’s studies, and in no way is this dorm against men. 
Secondly, if you wanted to compare the Women’s Collective to anything, I would think you’d compare it to a men’s club or a golf club that only accepts men as members. I feel, however, that Baldwin is still different from that in that there is a comfort and safe feeling that women can have in the company of other women. There is an incredible bond that women have because we are strong and have had to fight the male power structures.
This does not translate to “men are evil.” But I think everyone knows that women find it harder in the work-place, in positions of authority. Statistically, there is more violence against women. Having a place where women can live together in a safe space, a safe space for four years of their lives mind you, doesn’t seem to be a big crime to me. It is a community that welcomes women who are white, black, queer, straight, Asian, Latina, disabled and women of different socioeconomic backgrounds. We all have different stories and experiences that we feel comfortable sharing in the company of other women.
I think the cartoon somewhat cheapens the purpose of Baldwin. It’s a beautiful one, and it’s certainly made me come back to live there for three years.
Every safe space is unique, but try to put yourself in a woman’s position, and think of why this safe space might be an optional, temporary home for her. I’m sure many people feel marginalized in some way, so try to apply those feelings to the reason this Women’s Collective is important.

–Laurie Rubin 
Conservatory senior

For me, Baldwin provides support and education. It is a shift from a male-centered perspective to a female-centered perspective. When men are around, my behavior changes; I pay more attention to men, am more likely to coddle and am less likely to disagree openly. Baldwin is a corrective to my internalized sexism; it connects me with women and helps me rely on myself rather than men. Thus, my interactions with people outside Baldwin are improved. 

–Katherine E. Roberts
College senior

Gender privilege and race privilege (along with gender oppression and race oppression) are not comparable in every aspect regardless of whether people may use one to help their understanding of the other.

–Allison Curseen
College first-year

In my opinion, [sophomore Patrick] Schwemmer’s cartoon was ill-thought-out. In attempting to compare the segregated South with the Women’s Collective safe spaces, he failed to provide mention of power, force and community. Segregation forcibly kept black people out of public spaces to maintain white privilege and to visibly demonstrate white supremacy. Safe spaces are created to allow a haven for people who are disadvantaged in our society, such as people of color and women. They do not try to demonstrate these groups’ inherent superiority or maintain privilege.

–Rebecca Tinkelman
College first-year

Frankly, Schwemmer’s cartoon offended me. To compare the safe space that is Baldwin with the segregated South and then ask if that is even a valid comparison demonstrates a level of ignorance that I find profoundly disturbing. Actually, perhaps it is I who am missing something: I am unable to make a rational comparison between white supremacy and dehumanization and Baldwin’s function as safe space.
If Schwemmer was attempting to play devil’s advocate, then he needs to educate himself and think hard about the limitations of such action.
This cartoon was simply the most recent in a string of attacks on safe space on this campus. The animosity toward and misunderstanding of safe spaces needs to be addressed. Playing a highly offensive and ignorant form of devil’s advocate in hopes of creating “constructive dialogue” is not the way to accomplish this.

–Alita Pierson 
College senior


Oberlin Shuns Critical Thought
March 16 Staff Box
by Adrian Leung

Oberlin lied to me. I enrolled thinking this school would institutionally challenge our thinking, our security, the things we labeled “normal.”
Oberlin does not challenge students. In fact, Oberlin perpetuates the failure to question privilege.
In my four years, and particularly in these last two weeks, evidence only continues to amass to support the idea that Oberlin promotes these problems and oppression.
Let me begin by saying that attending any college is a privilege. My graduation will grant me access most other Americans will never experience or even conceive of. 
However, the fact that Oberlin represents this access to power does not negate the fact that it can also be oppressive. If anything, the privilege of being a college student might be the thing that blinds us to our perpetuation of other privileges — male, straight, rich, white.
Recently, Zeke became co-ed. I can understand the ensuing frenzy due to the College’s failure to consult Zeke in the decision making process. But I cannot understand rationalizations for an all-male dorm that sound like, “Women have a safe space. Men need one too.

Why do men need a safe space? Are men disenfranchised in our society? Are they doing double-shifts as money-makers and home-makers? Do they need to worry about getting raped when they walk alone at night?
If anything, my concern with having no all-male space is that a particular boy –– who will go nameless –– currently living in Zeke, will once again be living amongst women. He was relocated to Zeke because of his perverted desire to peep at women taking showers.
Why are Oberlin students not challenged in their ignorance of male privilege?
Another recent event that exposed the lack of critical thought at Oberlin concerns the “sportsphobia” explosion. Let me make clear: this concept of “sportsphobia” is not a prevalent problem in society. In actuality, America hails athletes. Some students may dislike athletes, and although this is wrong, this prejudice is not institutionally based. Athletes do not worry about going to a certain region of the United States and getting beat up, or lynched, or raped. Athletes aren’t killed because they come out to their friends and tell them they have athletic tendencies. 
How can students assert the existence of some non-athlete privilege? Moreover, how can they compare this to racism and heterosexism? Why are these students not challenged in their ignorance of white privilege or straight privilege?
Lastly, Professor of Theater and Dance Roger Copeland sent a letter into the Review denouncing identity politics. The most troubling aspect about his letter was his relation of identity politics to the idea of people limiting themselves. On the contrary, identity politics encourages people to recognize that they are the only masters of themselves, that no one should let someone else define who they are.
I am not at all surprised by the fact that Copeland, a white man, dislikes the notion that he might be invalid in assuming he understands the identity of a woman and/or a person of color. Copeland glorifies the era of pre-identity politics as a time when we “‘imaginatively leap[ed]’ out of ourselves.”
Mr. Copeland, why don’t you imaginatively leap yourself back to pre-identity politics, and slap on some blackface while you’re there. Do me a personal favor and tape your eyes back too.
Given that students aren’t being challenged to question their privilege, I should not be surprised that the chair of the theater and dance department does not recognize the problems of one person making presumptions upon the identity of another person. It doesn’t surprise me that people of color don’t feel supported in that department.
Why is it that there are still no professors with Queer Studies in their job description? Or why is there no Ethnic Studies department in this “liberal” institution? 
The obvious answer is the correct one: this college is not truly dedicated to questioning these social hierarchies. There are too many professors who teach too many students not to think about the privilege they hold and about the oppressive structures they preserve and construct everyday.


Identity Politics Criticism Wasn’t Racially Based
March 16 Letter

To the Editor:

In reading the letters that attack Professor [Roger] Copeland’s position on identity politics, the message is abundantly clear: people of a certain race, class, gender or sexuality have inviolate experiences that cannot be understood by someone who does not meet the same identity makeup. This new “liberal” mantra is curiously enough also the cornerstone of the racialist politics of the far right. It is the crucial principle in people’s minds about why interracial marriage is destructive, and why segregation, on a self-selected basis, is understandable and even admirable.

To say that all black people have a unique but uniform experience is patently silly, but more importantly, it is profoundly dangerous. It lends credibility to genetic theories like the Bell Curve and saps the life out of the true efforts people make to understand others who are not like themselves. 
[Junior Atley] Chock writes, “People of color think about race everyday, every waking hour.” As a person of color myself, I really don’t think about race very often. And I certainly don’t feel entitled to speak for people with whom I share genetic phenotypes, but no common lifetime experience. Still, I know some people are perfectly content, and have good reason, to think about their race and their role as a member of it as a career. I’m just not certain to what end we continually harangue the world with the message that we cannot possibly, at any level, understand different people all the while condemning any and all folks who don’t unconditionally accept these mysterious humans from other races. 
Though [first-year Shahana] Siddiqui has conceded her efforts to ever understand someone different, she would at least allow that she cannot “speak” for me and what I can do. Perhaps I, as a biracial Indian-American, can understand the “voice of African-American women.” In fact, I don’t, but more importantly I also fail to understand how black women have a “voice” that is unique, expressible and constant. If Siddiqui means to imply that only an African-American woman can give voice to the ideas of another African-American woman, that idea seems intellectually bankrupt as well. Because either you believe that African-American women have a uniform experience, mutual consensus and are interchangeable, or you don’t. Maybe you think that these factors color the worlds they live in, but saying that only identical people can understand each other remains untrue in reality and unhelpful in continuing real racial dialogue. 
Siddiqui’s original letter sounds as if it were waiting to be written, as if she longed to express just how “tolerant” and “inoffensive” she was. It felt like the equivalent of a politically correct resume builder — if only there would have been a way she could have been unjustly arrested as well. 
There is, of course, little value in calling Professor Copeland a racist. Doing so neither contributes to the dialogue on racial politics in a meaningful way, nor does an adequate job of explaining just why so many people have trouble accepting the contention that he truly is a bigot. 
He is right to say that the rush to remain politically correct is something that must be cultivated, both in the classroom and in the social environment of the trendy left. Such crippling attitudes are not intrinsic; they are the product of the incestuous culture of victimology and serve no apparent purpose (except to make the speaker feel self-righteous). If PC liberals think they are going to create social harmony through the enforcement of “ideas,” meaning that people will be told how to speak and act correctly toward different people, a particularly dismal future awaits the left. Social well-being is created through understanding, not the “agree to disagree” attitude. The crucible of mutual experience, and yes, even understanding, is a far more useful tool for soothing racial hatred than some contrived notion of who is and is not qualified to write a theater piece. As usual, “liberals” seem afraid of people living life in an uncontrolled fashion, and as usual find themselves behind the curve on the racial debate, more infatuated with the idea of not being offensive than creating sustainable approaches to the real problem of racial misunderstanding. Why on earth did we integrate schools in the first place? Let us hope this circle jerk doesn’t set truly progressive movement on racial politics back any farther than it already has.

–George Balgobin
Douglas, GA


Comic Didn’t Promote Dialogue
March 16 Letter

To the Editor:

Most people I know would view the comparison of a women-only space to segregation to be false and cruel. This is addressed to those of you that think this is just and correct. First of all, I am an African-American woman who lives in Baldwin. This cartoon [by sophomore Patrick Schwemmer in last week’s Review] affects me as a house member, as a feminist working through the ways in which race and gender oppression intersect and as the descendant of people who have lived through segregation and slavery.
In looking at the relevance the discussion of safe spaces and segregation has today, it is important that we look at the experiences of black women who live within spaces such as Baldwin. This cartoon denies our existence and our agency. What options does the “black” figure in the cartoon have after ze realizes that ze cannot enter the “white only safe space”? Does ze simply turn and walk away? This house, and other houses on this campus are a response to oppression. We create a space for ourselves. In the case of Baldwin, where there is not a house for Asian-American feminists, Latina feminists and African-American feminists, among many others, we have to work within this space to resist the oppression we feel throughout our lives. Is it assumed that women of color do not live here just because this house is viewed as (and I believe is) a space for white women? How do the three African-American women (out of 34) deal with the oppression we face within these walls and throughout this campus? This event has sparked a lot of debate in Baldwin; it is one of the few times race has been mentioned. If it is so easy to ignore the fact that race exists when dealing solely with gender oppression, why are black women used to point out inequalities between white men and white women? Why is it justified for white women to discuss race only when and as soon as their space is attacked, yet refuse to discuss the racism they perpetuate daily in their lives? People must address how the agency of black women and other women of color who live in Baldwin is being ignored –– are we tokens in this space or are we fighting for our voices to be heard? Can this discussion take place without acknowledgement of our gender, race and experience?
Finally, getting down to what this whole issue is really about –– white male safe space. Why do you need one when the whole world is your safe space? If you feel oppressed on this campus that is fine, we can work with that. I’m sure many safe spaces on this campus would be happy to have real dialogue with you all. But don’t expect other people to work against ending the oppression you face when you have no interest in ending ours. Spend some time thinking about who you are, where you come from, and what that means and then get back to us when you are ready for REAL constructive dialogue.

–Lisa Merriweather
College sophomore


Schwemmer Responds to Cartoon’s Reception
April 6 Letter

To the Editor:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I would guess that only about 400 of the words I heard in response to my cartoon were responding to the message I intended to send. In that regard I suppose Andrew Smith is right in calling me a schmuck (though wrong about everything else). I hope that I can express myself more concisely, if not more vividly, in writing than in pictures. First of all, I was not saying anything about the racial situation anywhere. I was making an analogy using the archetypal image of Southern segregation, and as [senior] Mary Margaret Towey wisely reminds us, if the “magnitude were the same it wouldn’t be an analogy!”
I must also rebuke the assertions of those who call my views ignorant: although I may lack understanding in many areas, I feel safe in claiming first-hand experience on this issue. I have one good friend who lives in Baldwin, and I have recently made a few more through polite and fruitful dialogue on my cartoon’s topic. I should also point out the impetus behind my cartoon. The last time I visited Baldwin I was quite emphatically asked to leave because I had wandered into the wrong room in search of a garbage can and absent-mindedly sat down to pick out a melody on the piano. I can blame nothing but carelessness on my part for my failure to check for a sign on the door to see whether people fitting my demographic profile were allowed in or not. I had never been anywhere where that was a concern before I came to Oberlin, so I hope the residents of Baldwin will excuse my naïveté.
Most importantly, whatever others may say about it, I maintain that the exercise of projecting ourselves beyond our finite being to see other viewpoints is crucial to even the most rudimentary grasp of any issue, including this one. Those who claim that safe space segregation is different from white-on-black segregation (in kind rather than in degree), because of the balance of power, reveal their special deficiency in this regard. I hope that I can demonstrate the usefulness of the method for you now.
As I write my head is somewhat sore from trying to imagine the august city fathers of Birmingham getting together and pondering how best “to visibly demonstrate white supremacy,” (as first-year Rebecca Tinkelman puts it) and finally deciding that segregating public places by race would be a fine way to celebrate this well-established fact. 
When we examine the evidence we find that racism is based on a nearly opposite impulse: fear and paranoia. If there were conscious beliefs motivating the actions of these cowering bureaucrats, they were something like this: that black people were going to take over — marry our children, dominate commerce, rape our women, pollute culture, etc. Feelings of supremacy are seldom, if ever, the white supremacist’s main motivation. Do you believe the Klansman when he tells you that all he’s about is celebrating the White Culture he loves? No: that is the positive cover story for his mainly negative actions. And so when we consult works that try to look inside the experience of people involved in this issue in order to better understand it and broaden our perspectives (also known as art) — for instance, To Kill A Mockingbird, American History X and especially Birth of a Nation — we find that racism is based not on thoughts like, “Let’s remind everybody that we’re superior to those colored folk (rah rah rah),” nearly so much as, “We’d better watch out for those black people — our safety and the status quo are threatened by their presence.”
The thesis of my cartoon is that the same kind (different degree, obviously) of fear motivates the little, seemingly harmless, retaliatory segregation that Oberlin likes to call “Safe Space.” Sophomore Lisa Merriweather, in her dialogue-filled letter, “Cartoon Didn’t Promote Dialogue,” confirms this by calling Safe Space “a response to oppression,” (by oppressing them back, of course). Keeping certain kinds of people out of a room because of what they are supposedly likely to do, based on demographic research or personal prejudice — in short, fear, however justified and however dispassionately held — is an evil equal in kind, if not in degree, to the most purely pernicious example of segregation in our experience. Thus the point of the cartoon is the expression on the white girl’s face: she is afraid, because authority figures in her life have told her that black men are dangerous, just as many Oberlin women feel that they have well-documented reason to fear the company of men.
Safe Space is also completely different from — and in fact opposed to — freedom of assembly. To paraphrase the dissenting opinion of Plessy v. Ferguson (the case establishing segregation in the South) and apply it here, what if my friends from Baldwin and I wanted to get together to play the piano and study in the lounge? Sure, we could go elsewhere, but that’s outside the realm of principle, on which law must be based. For these reasons, I believe that Safe Spaces represent an unjust rule and should be integrated. If women want to get together alone to discuss issues and build community they have my hearty support. It is for freedom of assembly that I am fighting here, and one thing that prevents it is the arbitrary labeling of a space as for one demographic group only. I do not presume to invade the women’s bathroom or the private rooms of an all-female dorm; universal common sense supports these useful things. 
The ideology behind Safe Spaces, however, is completely different from this, because it would not necessarily limit their presence to program houses: from Baldwin’s theory, Safe Spaces all over campus (and why not Safe Classes taught by Safe Teachers?) are only a step or two away.
The whole world should be everyone’s safe space — that is the goal of writing laws. You may say I’m dreaming, but if we assume that the law isn’t going to work and try to circumvent it by keeping out whoever we think is most likely to break it, we incite a kind of Safe Space Race: our own little paranoid Cold War right here in the Oberlin bubble(s). By boarding up the windows against each other, we are not giving peace a chance.

–Patrick Reinhart Schwemmer
College sophomore