Mary Margaret: take a reality check and be nice

To the Editors:

(This is in response to Mary Margaret Towey regarding her piece entitled "Top Ten Annoyances.")

Mary Margaret. I must say that you genuinely have interesting things to say. Whether I agree with them or not is another issue and a very long response. However, out of all the annoyances I have experienced at Oberlin College in the four years I have been attending this institution, I would have to say that your piece was one of the more, shall we say, perpetually stupid ones. If anything annoys me more, it is people like you who take the time to allow everything around them to annoy them. You obviously seem to have a problem with Oberlin College. So I ask myself if you have so many "annoyances" and "issues" which is better stated for your purpose, why do you attend a college such as this or one at all? You will find the annoyances that you describe at Oberlin College a far cry from the problems that we face in the real world. If you can not handle these, are you really suited to enter the world beyond Oberlin? According to your "annoyances," you stated that people annoy you who play their music loudly on their boom box. You outright insulted a specific person on this campus. Is there really a need to do this? You may not say names but people know what you are talking about and from this you will only find people disrespecting you more than people already do. Your annoyances are extremely trivial and mundane. Rather than tell everyone about the problems you have with Tappan Square, you should carry around a pooper scooper and scrape up all the shit instead of letting it fall out of your head and onto the graces of the Oberlin Review. Take a reality check. There are so many other things in the world to concern yourself with.

Rather than tell everyone about the problems you have with Tappan Square, you should carry around a pooper scooper and scrape up all the shit instead of letting it fall out of your head and onto the graces of the Oberlin Review. Take a reality check. There are so many other things in the world to concern yourself with. --

Amy Gunzenhauser, College senior

Keichline redux: a clarification about Fresh and Afrocentrism

To the Editors:

(This is an open letter to the Oberlin College community.)

So maybe you're sighing that you're seeing my name again in a letter to the Review. I feel it may be necessary, however, to write in response to the feeling that some people may have: what business does a white girl have, thinking she should "support" Doug E. Fresh and Afrocentricism?

Believe me, I could have written a letter saying our society can benefit from a more woman-centered perspective. That is to say, to go beyond a pat acknowledgement that woman are okay people too - to instead truly realize and learn from the fact that women are very intelligent and very valuable people in many ways that are different from men (both because of biology, society, and a combination), and to open up the structures of our society to account for these differences, in addition to the similarities, between men and women. This is something I believe strongly.

However, I have not ever felt moved to write a letter to the Review about this, and I instead felt moved to write a letter to the Review to support a black male musician and Afrocentricism. Maybe, I felt instinctively that to write such a letter, rather than to write one supporting a white female artist or feminism, would have more impact. As a white woman, I belong to a group which traditionally has been considered in many ways the "antithesis" people to that of black men - not only that, but a group which traditionally has been seen to need separation and protection from black men. These ideas are no good for anyone.

In this life, there are many obstacles inside and outside of us that hold us back from loving and respecting ourselves, and expressing ourselves. I struggle with this like everyone else, and I love working on healthy ways to express myself. I also love when I see another person working to express themselves, and music is one of the most powerful ways I am impacted by other people's voices.

I am not an expert on Doug E. Fresh or hip-hop (or Afrocentric views, or many other things), but I am aware that hip-hop- is a lucrative industry, and that it is gaining some more respect as our society moves towards more thoughtful examinations of "pop culture," and race, among other things. I am also aware, however - and was reminded of this by the relatively rare presence of security guards at a 'Sco concert (while it maybe could be explained as a precautionary measure for Doug E. Fresh as a sort of celebrity) - that an artist such as Doug E. Fresh, even with whatever degree of recognition he has, can still in 1999 be disrespected, both personally as a black man expressing himself and as an artist in the genre of hip-hop. There's another thing that's no good to anyone.

Some may argue that he doesn't need the support of a white woman. I'm sure Doug E. Fresh will do what he wants to do regardless of whether or not I give my support. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't voice it; I think it does us an good to hear someone voicing support across racial and/or gender lines - so long as that person is sincere! I believe I am, even with my racist hang-ups and other fallacies.

So if you see me and you want to talk about these letters or related issues with me, then I want to talk with you. Or, I hope, you maybe will talk some with other people. Here at Oberlin, like everywhere else, we can have fears of talking about, or even thinking about, such complex and emotionally-charged issues as gender and race. I believe it's better for everyone if we both acknowledge those fears and fight to move beyond them. There's still a ways to go. Let's see what we can do.

--

Leigh Anne Keichline, College senior

Don't walk away from the messes you make

To the Editors:

10:30 p.m., Monday, May 3rd. The climbing wall and laser tag that were brought to Wilder Bowl today have just left on a trailer. It looked like a lot of fun, which everybody needs. I'm not writing to call to question the wisdom behind using college money for entertainment of this proportion, though we all know I could. I'm writing to express my frustration with the amount of garbage that participants in the fun left behind when they were done. This is not a bleeding-heart, tree-hugging plea to please stop polluting our earth, though we all know it could be. This is a hope that we could all think for a second about how much students get picked-up-after on this campus. I've flicked a spent cigarette butt or two around here in my day, so I'm not trying to pretend that I'm better than other people.

At some point tonight, or tomorrow, probably before your ass is out of bed and back to Wilder Bowl, someone will have taken time out of their regular shift as an Oberlin College custodian/B&G employee to pick up and throw away the juice bottles, CDS food things, magazines, ball caps, and other objects you forgot to be responsible for yesterday. I guess that's what this letter is really about: maturity, responsibility, and (insert well-worn-but-seldom-understood term here:) privilege. I guess I can't help but make a connection between the fact that we can't clean up after ourselves and the complaints that some students have had recently about the administration failure to take student input and opinion seriously. True, we are students, "kids," not grown-ups. And it's also true that there are plenty of grown-ups who make much bigger messes than the rather modest one left on Wilder Bowl tonight. But I wouldn't be surprised if Buildings & Grounds, Maintenance, and Custodial Services, not to mention the administration and faculty, have come to EXPECT us to not act like grown-ups. Think about it: the reason we don't trust children with the responsibility and authority to make decisions is because they have'nt learned how to take responsibility for their surroundings. I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like much of a leap from here to the purposeful budgeting of part of the College's $30,000/year/student revenue to make sure students keep the ability to walk away from the messes we make.

--

Kerry Lowe, College senior

OC student unionization can work to combat class privilege

To the Editors:

This letter is in response to comments made by Ruth Spencer, director of Human Resources at Oberlin College, and past commentaries in The Oberlin Review. I am disturbed, though not very surprised, by the blatant class privilege that continually surfaces in The Oberlin Review. More recently, Spencer depicts student workers as individuals who work a few hours a week to earn "spending money" and thus should not be considered seriously in terms of a workforce or as participants in class struggle.

Have we forgotten about work study? According to The Review, the average work-study "award" is about $1250. So some students have to work more and others less, but after it all, huge portions of their paychecks go towards paying the College. Many students also need to pay off-campus rent, buy hundreds of dollars worth of books, etc. There is definite class privilege behind comments that assume student workers and students organizing for a better workplace are a bunch of "rich kids" on some kind of power trip.

Student workers need a union. We need a political voice, to address workplace concerns and students' positions within capitalism, as consumers and producers of knowledge, and as skilled would-be managers of the future.

Student reaction to unionization is the most disturbing aspect of this recent display of class privilege. Many of us on campus are concerned and have voiced our concerns about the changing demographics at Oberlin. The statistics out of the admissions office may not reflect the changes more and more marginalized communities (i.e. people of color, low-income, queer, first generation ... ) have come to realize. For me, the condemnation of student activism, of questioning authority, and of collective organizing represent a shift to the right in Oberlin politics. Maybe the hundreds of OSCA members, outside of Third World Co-op, have forgotten that their co-ops are not just places to eat but places of collective organization and empowerment. Maybe we are becoming another Dartmouth.

Think one person can change the world? We were all persuaded by this sort of individualistic crap. Some of you have decided the status quo is okay, and to hang on to your privilege despite its consequences for others. Many of us have decided it takes the recognition of this privilege and collective action to change the world for the better.

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Mary Jerzak, College senior