Forum participation is imperative
Protesters, pickles, and photo ops
Once again, it's test time.
Once again, candidates for an important administrative position are visiting our campus to be wined, dined and (one lucky person) signed to an Oberlin office. We're in the enviable position of being able to help choose who will serve as the next dean of students.
Peter Goldsmith was the first contender for the title to come to Oberlin. Fourteen students attended his open forum on Thursday. Fourteen, of a college of approximately 3,000. Each person at the forum represented 214 of her classmates. Yikes. We're all busy. But, surely more than 14 of you went to watch The Godfather in Kettering later that evening.
The new dean will be a powerful person at Oberlin; he or she will help set the tone for the college community long after students here have graduated. However, with the high attrition rate of administrators on this campus, it's possible that the candidate that we choose might beat us to the gate - one powerful reason it's imperative that we show up to these forums. We have the responsibility and privilege to help choose the candidate with the most potential to mold Oberlin in the way we think best. And it's necessary that we choose someone who will stick around Oberlin long enough to make a positive impact.
Controversy, albeit subtle, preceded the forums this week. Some attention, expressed in anonymous e-mails and letters, was paid to the fact that three of the four candidates are white, and rumors circulated about a potential protest at Goldsmith's speech. While no one chanted the man from Dartmouth down, the issue has been raised and continues to be discussed in some pockets of the campus community.
Diversity is an important goal, one to which the College pays thousands of dollars of lip service every year - to some avail. However, protesting the appearance of someone who just had the temerity to apply for a job is short-sighted. The concerns of minority representation are certainly valid; however, waiting until candidates have begun interviewing for a position and protesting their appearance is the wrong kind of input to effect change. This sort of demonstration will probably be ignored and certainly jeopardize a sensitive and carefully-constructed selection process. Attending the forums, grilling the applicants and giving feedback to the search committee is the one real, powerful way to have a say in who will be leading Oberlin into the next century.
What do you call a bunch of SLACers dressed up like Russian peasants singing about corporate greed? Or how about a bunch of Harkies dressing up like pickles and chanting on a street corner? Here at Oberlin we call these theatrics "protests." What exactly are they protesting; well, the peasants are trying to rid the world of sweatshops, while the pickles are protesting migrant exploitation.
However, are these protests effective means for righting social wrongs, or are they vainglorious acts of self-righteousness? Is parading around Stevenson at lunch an act to draw awareness toward exploited workers or to draw awareness to students' heroic concerns and awareness? Sadly, the answers to both these questions may be the latter.
This is not to say that all protests are done selfishly or enact no greater good. Nor is this to mean that outlandish acts done to draw attention to a cause are ineffective. But there can be a very fine line between altruism and merely satiating the ego through photo ops.
Both the display this week in Stevenson and the proposed display on migrant workers seem to be good intentions focused in the wrong direction. Perhaps if the peasants had marched through the mall, or the pickles chained themselves to the Vlasic headquarters then these claims would not be made. However, as they are, both protests only scratch the surface of two major problems and do so for a small audience.
Singling out one company or one vegetable as appropriate targets for abuses that pervade both the entire garment and agricultural industries seems unfair and short-sighted. If we want to stop sweatshops then we are going to have to protest every major sportswear, lingerie, and department store in the country. Similarly, if we want to stop labor abuses in the agricultural industry we are going to have to set our sights higher than pickle producers. But maybe that is not what we want. To aim higher might require more than some catchy jingle or cute costume.
Copyright © 1999, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 127, Number 17, March 12, 1999
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