Partridge essay perpetuates marginalization among minorities
Towey's self-righteous attitude more damaging than smoking
Science aids all students
Communities must work together to present united front against hatred
This is a follow-up letter to last week's essay concerning Matthew Shepard. Its purpose is to clarify the focus and intent of last week's essay in light of the concerns raised by some individuals and groups about it.
To clarify, the essay was directed at the entire community, and not just at one or two parts of the community. To reinforce this point I want to emphasize that the essay did not contain a queer-straight dichotomy, nor was there an intention to imply one. (In fact, if any dichotomy did exist, it was a people of color-white one.) If certain individuals or groups read such a dichotomy into the letter, I apologize for not making the focus of the letter clearer, but given the length parameters of the Review, hard decisions about content and clarity had to be made to ensure brevity. A queer-straight dichotomy did not exist for several reasons which can be illustrated by examining the two specific aspects of the entire community's response that the essay criticized. First, I will address the comment I made about the Oberlin Gay/Straight Alliance. In no way was the alliance itself criticized, only the fact that the increased publicity about the alliance was lacking in that such publicity did not also address anti-hate in general, which was the topic of the speak-out. Had the speak-out sought to address anti-homophobia, then the increased publicity about OGSA would have been more in keeping with the focus of the speak-out and then the criticism would be a non-issue. Secondly, the criticism about the rock. Nowhere in the essay is it stated implicitly or implied that the painting of the rock was endorsed, supported, or executed by any formal group or organization. All that is stated in the essay about the actual painting of the rock is that it was completed by the day of the speak-out.
Another point that was made in the essay which I would like to stress here in order to further clarify the focus and intent is the relationship between the campus reaction and racism. To illustrate this relationship, I will discuss the inclusion of Lenard Clark's case in the essay.
His story was included for two reasons, to refute the argument underlying the campus's response and to illustrate that difference in reaction to the hate crime perpetrated against a white man vis-a-vis a person of color or other minority. This section will concentrate the latter reason. American society values the lives of white people more than the lives of people of color. To explicitly demonstrate this point I will cite a few stories. In 1995 two children were missing from their homes in San Diego county. One child was white, and the other black. An all-out search was conducted for the white child while little was done to find the black child. During the 1970s in San Francisco there was a mass murderer in the city who was suspected of being black. The mayor issued a call for all black men fitting the suspect's description to be stopped and checked by the police. Detroit 1994, police return an Asian-American to a white mass murderer despite the man's protestations because they believed the situation to be a dispute between homosexual lovers. To cite a more recent example, the 1997 and 1998 shootings at schools in Little Rock Arkansas and suburban Seattle Washington. Childhood deaths as a result of gunfire at school is nothing new, after all it happens quite often in inner-city schools. The difference in this case is that it happened to white kids in suburban America instead of people of color in the inner-city.
To help enable the community to deal with and address the issues presented in the essay, several actions will be initiated.
An extended version of the original printed essay will be posted at various locations around campus for community members to read. Each copy will be attached to a notebook in which individuals may write comments and critiques. Individuals may also add their name to the list of endorsees to the extended essay. Included with the notebooks will be a copy of the original published version with all its endorsees.
There will be an initial meeting of ARA, Anti-Racist Action, on Tuesday, November 10, 1998, in Wilder 101 at 9 pm. This group will seek to further comprehensive anti-hate action on this campus and will cooperatively engage with other groups to further its goals.
Lastly, there may also be a forum which will discuss the essay and the comments made about it in the notebooks.
I would like to personally apologize to all the members of the queer community and queer people of color community who were offended by the letter and took it as an attack against them. No one in Third World House, nor any of the other published endorsees would have endorsed the letter had they read it as an attack against either community. They endorsed the letter because they read it as addressing an issue related to American society's relations with people of color while using recent events as smaller scale illustrations of these issues. Also, I acted as final editor of the essay and the overwhelming majority of the paper was written by me and me alone. The endorsees that are listed as contributors did so only in the sense of proofreading, and minor rephrasing and editing changes.
To the Editors:
Mary Margaret Towey is exactly right: the tobacco debate is far from complete. As long as there are those that are willing to trample on the rights of smokers and tobacco entrepreneurs, it cannot come to an end.
The first "myth" that Towey attempts to debunk is that smoking is a highly personal choice. She seems to believe that since people (particularly younger ones) do not make the same decision that she does, they must be uninformed; it is difficult to see how this could be true. By the time a child is a teenager, it is virtually impossible for that child to have missed the fact that long term smoking has the potential to damage health. On every advertisement they have seen, there has been a disclaimer, and during Saturday morning cartoons there are public service announcements sharing the news; in school there is antismoking propaganda, and on every pack of cigarettes they have seen there is a blatant warning. Towey then claims that peer pressure is a major cause of teen smoking, which I do not think anyone would deny, but the question becomes, how does this deny free choice? True enough, it influences the decision a certain way, but there are influences on every decision that we make in our lives. It is simply not true that teens are "almost helpless in the face of this pressure." Were it true, a far greater percentage of teens would be smokers than actually are. No choice that we make is free of all outside influence, but that does not imply that we are helpless and that our choices are not sufficiently free.
Then the claim is made that the advertising that tobacco companies use is wrong in some way, or unduly influences free choice by associating sex appeal with their product. But then, what line of product doesn't use sex to sell an unrelated item? From jeans to cars to music and anything else one would care to name, the same tactic is used. Why is it wrong for tobacco companies to do the same?
Towey also uses the presence of litter as an argument against smokers. At best, this is an argument against the cleanliness habits of some smokers. This argument has no relevance to the issue of the morality or the harmfulness of smoking itself.
Now we come to Towey's shallow rebuttal of the "holier-than-thou" attitude that some non- smokers are accused of having, Towey herself included. This attitude has logical implications that Towey seems not to recognize. The willingness to claim a moral superiority to smokers (which Towey has, in no uncertain terms) leads to practical and legal violations of rights that are beyond reprehensible. This willingness leads to law in some states that prevents private business owners from allowing smoking in their establishments if they so choose, a blatant violation of property rights; it leads to tobacco companies being forced to pay money to those that willingly bought their products and used them, in many (and particularly more recent) cases with knowledge of the potential dangers; and it leads to unconstitutional restrictions on the advertising speech of entrepreneurs, among other things. All of these effects of the non-smoking sentiment are more immoral than any action that a smoker or tobacco entrepreneur could have committed.
To close out by continuing the "earthy" analogy that Towey began, it is true that I would be wrong to accuse you of being "holier-than-thou" if I were to piss in the water upstream from where you were drinking, were that the only stream from which you could drink, but would I be wrong in my accusation if you were to demand control of every single place that I could go to do what I wished so that your morality could be enforced? I think not. That demand is where the "holier-than-thou" attitude is headed. Perhaps it could be argued that second-hand smoke in an enclosed room has the chance of damaging an innocent bystander's health (if that person did not have the personal initiative to simply leave the room), but to imply that any puff of smoke that is exhaled at any time is damaging to everyone's health is a stretch, to say the least. The atmosphere is big enough for all of us, smokers and non-smokers alike. Attitudes such as Towey's are far more damaging than any smoker's fumes could ever be.
To the Editors:
Sarah Rooney's letter to the editor (Oberlin Review, Oct. 9, 1998) reveals three misconceptions about the sciences at Oberlin: one concerns the planned science facility, another concerns science alumni. But her most important misconception involves the very character of a liberal arts education.
Rooney writes that she didn't know, until recently, that Oberlin was a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and that "had I known that, I may [sic] have gone somewhere else." The term "liberal" in "liberal arts education" does not mean "politically left-wing" - it means "liberating." The purpose of a liberal arts education is to liberate the student from the particular details and provincialities of where he or she happened to be born, of the culture and the era in which he or she happened to be reared. The goal of a liberal arts
education is to widen the student's horizons so that he or she can understand (not just parrot) his own culture and beliefs, and so that he or she can understand other cultures, both past and present. This is why Oberlin College has a cultural diversity requirement.
But it is not enough to widen one's horizons within the human world, vast though it is. A liberally educated person's horizons extend still farther to encompass the food we eat, the soil we walk on, the air we breathe, the sunlight that gives us warmth and life, the universe in which we live. This is why Oberlin College has a science requirement, and this is why science is so much a part of every thinking person's world, regardless of that person's college major. These observations are neither new nor peculiar to Oberlin College: Of the seven medieval liberal arts -grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music -three today fall solidly within the College's Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, while one (logic) is cross-listed between the mathematics and philosophy departments.
On to Rooney's two lesser misconceptions. She suggests that Oberlin College science alumni all become "research assistants and university professors." It is true that many science alumni have become professional scientists, but others have become physicians, lawyers, business managers, politicians, development officers, librarians, wheelchair designers, food co-op managers, musicians (both rock and classical), and bakers. Similarly, she implies that the planned science facility will benefit only science majors. On the contrary, it has been designed from the start to benefit all Oberlin College students, with facilities for small-group conversations and interactive engagement teaching-techniques proved to be particularly effective in teaching science to non-science majors.
To the Editors:
Hate crime is not about statistical representation. Bigotry is not about numbers. It's about fear. Fear of being who you are because someone is going to come along and hurt you, maybe even kill you. That gnawing, hungry pit in the bottom of your stomach when you walk down a street and watch the passing figures eye you with loathing. That restrictive chill that breathes down your neck when you try to express yourself to someone and can't. It's not about race, or gender, or orientation. Hate sees no distinction except difference. It's the same fear, and the hatred is the same hatred.
Unfortunately, that fear is a characteristic of many communities. I say unfortunately, because fear is an unpleasant way to be connected with anyone. More unfortunately, most of us inside these communities tend to forget we're connected; we tend to forget that our fear is the same fear. Every single one of us comes from a different background, from a different history, but we all know the same hatred, the hatred directed at each and every one of us. Instead of letting it bring us together, however, we often let it drive us apart, and stand pointing fingers at who isn't working hard enough or who doesn't have it as bad or who is being ignorant to the needs of others. And it hinders us, it keeps us from uniting and working together to stop what is feeding off of our disunity - the hatred and the fear.
We have a unique opportunity to advance past our disunity here at Oberlin, however. We have an advantage that very few other people have: money. For the first time ever, the college has grants available for projects focusing on unity through diversity and organizations working together to educate themselves and Oberlin. Thanks to the Hewlett grants, we have money. I, specifically, have begun working on a project which would take hate crime education into the community and the schools in a week-long conference.
I want to bring speakers, hold workshops, and make a united front against the hatred against all Communities. It's very hard to find anyone who seems interested, however. it makes me wonder where all the concerned people are, and how I can find them. Yes, this is a self-promotional editorial (is there any other kind), But it is also a reaction to the "reminder" posed last week by John Partridge. Believe it or not, there are people who want to work together, and funds available, but they all just need to connect. Please, don't let this opportunity go to waste - don't let our differences keep us apart and afraid.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review. Contact us with your comments and suggestions.
Partridge essay perpetuates marginalization among minorities
Towey's self-righteous attitude more damaging than smoking
Science aids all students
Communities must work together to present united front against hatred
Volume 127, Number 8, November 6, 1998