COMMENTARY

E D I T O R I A L S:

Community amnesia?
Communication breakdown

Community amnesia?

How quickly we forget. It was a little over a year ago that an assailant broke into Fairchild House, walked into a first-year's room, threatened her with rape and then assaulted her with a blunt metal object stolen from Fairchild coop. The Fairchild incident shook the campus to its foundation. Immediately afterwards, students made concerted efforts to walk in pairs, lock their doors and keep an eye open for suspicious individuals. General awareness of campus safety shot to the forefront of everyone's consciousness. Monday's stabbing rattled the campus back into last year's state of shock. As word spread around Oberlin, students immediately started taking extra precautions to insure against a repeat performance of the gruesome Noah assault.

Who shares the responsibility for Monday's stabbing? Does the student body and the College administration legitimately consider safety awareness? One can't help but notice a slacking in safety concerns after the initial shock of the Fairchild attack. In an all-campus letter the day after the recent assault, President Nancy Dye wrote, "...it is very easy to be lulled into the belief that nothing bad could happen here because we are such a small, friendly town and campus." As the months passed by the Fairchild incident, people thought less of their own safety and fell back into their old habits. People braved the dark streets unescorted, and no one thought twice about holding the door open for the person behind them.

The College also fell into the same pattern of forgetfulness. The Fairchild windows that allowed entry for the attacker were not replaced with more secure structures until earlier this year. A full year after the assault was committed.

It is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security, but what has the College and the student body done to break the campus community from this mindset and protect itself from future crimes? Since the initial rush of paranoia surrounding the Fairchild assault, the College community has been ineffective in taking extra security measures.


Communication breakdown

On this campus, anytime you walk into a discussion on race you have to be prepared for a tension-filled event. It's not unusual to see people walk out of discussions on race or multiculturalism with a distant, empty look in their eyes. This shell-shocked expression is deserved. The majority of times such a conversation resembles World War I; with students firmly entrenched in their positions, fighting over vaguely defined issues toward uncertain ends.

The most recent such discussion to be held occurred on Thursday in King 306. Filled to an extent that would make a fire-marshal cringe, featuring two highly distinguished professors, Amy Gutmann and Michael Sandel, Dean Goldsmith, and Senior class President Ingrid Huang, despite the best efforts of Professor of Politics Paul Dawson, what was billed as a discussion of multiculturalism at times resembled a bar-room brawl. Far too many attendees of the conversation were too busy wrangling over semantics and identity politics to actually address the goals of discussing multiculturalism and the College's implementation thereof.

This is not to say that Thursday's discussion was a failure. In an hour long discussion there is no way that the problems facing those concerned with multiculturalism will be instantly solved. Just to get such a large group assembled and to start a dialogue on the subject is an accomplishment in itself. Once such a program is held featuring equal parts listening and talking, then substantial progress is truly on its way.

However, such a conversation is impossible until students approach multiculturalism from a different approach. Far too many on this campus view multiculturalism as a win/loss proposition, with no room for discussion, just immediate redress of their concerns. Those who argued most strongly at Thursday's discussion often had very important concerns, and yes they must be addressed as soon as possible, but by belittling others� concerns or by being overly aggressive diminishes the effect of their message.

A defining moment of the discussion, and on the state of Oberlin's identity politics, came when a student vehemently urged for the creation of ethnic studies programs. After Professor Dawson asked the student to expound on the utility of such programs for the campus as a whole, Dawson was viewed harshly by many in the audience from that point on. But his message was important, and of the utmost value to any concerned with the state of multiculturalism: when you're in the minority, it is vital that you communicate your message and the utility of its implementation to those above you. That so many did not take this advice, and instead turned it against its messenger, speaks volumes for many individuals and groups on this campus. Until people work together and form coalitions instead of grasping only their piece of the multicultural pie, improved relations between races, cultures, classes and other groups on campus will be mired in a standstill.


Editorials in this box are the responsibility of the editor-in-chief, managing editor and commentary editor, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff of the Review.

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Copyright © 1999, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 128, Number 9, November 12, 1999

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