Drag Ball is staged for straight people

To the Editor:

It's the Monday after Drag Ball, and everyone keeps asking me how I liked the big party. For some reason, they all assume that, as a gay man living in Oberlin, I must have gone to the Ball, but the fact is (having been twice in the past) I wouldn't go near it. From what I've seen, the Drag Ball doesn't have much to do with drag, nor is it an especially gay event. While I feel a little silly writing to complain about a party, I do think that a little dialogue about this event is in order. Here are two questions:

First, why persist in calling this event a "Drag" Ball? Drag is a particular cultural practice that has resonated powerfully in urban, homosexual communities. Admittedly, it has lost a lot of its currency in the last few years, when every straight boy in America seems ready to throw a dress on at the least provocation. But, once up on a time, drag had an important cultural and political significance in some communities (as it still does in many African- American and Hispanic gay communities). Once upon a time, those girls actually risked something to do drag. It seems odd that in Oberlin, of all places, the students would be so willing to obscure and muddy that tradition. Apart from a few hardy queens who really work that runway, most of what we see at the Drag Ball is straight boys in ill-fitting girls' clothes (a lazy parody of drag?), and women dressing as women. Or there are people in various fetish costumes, which have little or nothing to do with cross-dressing, much less with drag. I hear that this year a couple showed up completely nude (as Adam and Eve), which is literally as far from cross-dressing as you can get. Maybe it's merely semantics, or maybe "Drag" is being redefined in culturally significant ways that I don't understand, but it looks to me like the Drag Ball is just a big old costume party. Why not call it a "Spring Masquerade" and let the drag queens (past and present) keep a little dignity?

Secondly, why is the LGBT community expected to help with this event, or even care about it? When I first came to Oberlin several years ago, the Drag Ball was described to me (by one of its promoters) as a party for straight people- who, I was told, like to bask in the glamour of things gay. The reason for the (then) LGBU's sponsorship was that they made some money to support their other activities. But according to last week's Review the whole thing has grown far beyond the resources of the LGBTU and is so expensive to stage that it barely supports itself. It sometimes looks as if the queer community at Oberlin exists primarily to stage a big party for straight people.

-Steven Rugare, Oberlin resident

Spalding patronizes by assuming science for whites

To the Editor:

In the article "Concerns Aired at Trustee Forum," ( Review March 6, 1998) junior Dan Spalding is quoted as saying, "What gender and what race of students will we attract with a new science building, versus the gender and race of students the College will attract with ethnic studies? It's obvious that the agenda of the College is not as progressive as it seems."

If I understand Mr. Spalding correctly, he is saying that a science building will attract white people, or better yet, white males, and if the College wants to attract "ethnic" people (who apparently are oblivious to the sciences) it had better put together some courses about ethnic people. This is one of the more patronizing opinions I've read in the Review. It reinforces the canard that science is just for white guys, when that is precisely the stereotype that we should be struggling to be rid of!

To assume that Oberlin will only be able to attract people of different ethnicities if the College has courses about their respective ethnicities is condescending to those very communities. As if all students from ethnic groups just want to go to college to study their own ethnic group! There may be other legitimate reasons for hyphenated-American courses, but to imply that these courses are for the "ethnic students" just reinforces restrictive stereotypes of minority student interests and capabilities.

-John Kearney, OC '93

Parking lot irony looms over center

To the Editor:

There's a big irony looming over the upcoming construction of the Environmental Studies Center. Seems as though the City of Oberlin is concerned that the center - because of its special nature and the community programs it will endorse - will bring additional cars into the city that will have to find a place to park. The City finds the problem a no-brainer; just put a 20 car parking lot next to the building and the problem is solved.

Let me remind you, though, that this is a building in which people will loudly preach the necessity for communities to become less car dependent and that moving people around with leg power on pretty, tree-shaded sidewalks and bikeways with little or no car traffic is much preferable. To them, putting a parking lot next to the building would be sort of like putting an opium den next to a drug treatment center.

Now I think the city has a right to want to keep cars associated with the College from parking on its already congested street and downtown parking areas. They cost a lot to build and maintain - I've been told a minimum of $3000.00/ year per space - and City residents and customers of local merchants should definitely have priority for their use.

Seems to me there's a simple solution to the dilemma. Why don't people who live close to and use the many College parking areas near the location for the Environmental Studies Center just not drive their cars to work, freeing up parking spaces for the center. In addition to possibly avoiding the construction of that ugly, 20 space parking lot, there would be other advantages. Think of the exercise people would get, the reduced air pollution and traffic noise, and the $3000.00/ year per parking space savings that the College could use on far more important and beautiful things than parking lots.

To me it's really another no-brainer. Let's not build new parking lots. Let's use our cars less.

-Ken Sloane, Director of Piano Technology, City Councilperson