Copeland Questions Siddiqui’s Open-Mindedness
A Perspectives Essay
by Roger Copeland
Professor of theater and dance

To the Editor:

Only the most vigilant guardian of common sense could possibly find the time to respond to all of the nonsense that’s published, week after week, in the Oberlin Review’s “Letters to the Editor” section. But every once in a while, a letter appears that sums up the reigning orthodoxies –– the prevailing madness –– with such exquisite, if unintentional, precision that some sort of response becomes necessary. 
Last week’s prizewinner was a letter by Shahana Siddiqui that ran under the wonderfully hyberbolic title “Review Editors Should Resign.” I wish I could simply reprint the letter here, in its entirely, for it demonstrates with frightening forthrightness some of the more absurd consequences of Oberlin’s current obsession with “identity politics.” One of the most destructive underlying assumptions of this political ethos is that we are incapable as unique individuals of ever really understanding the experiences of those whose race, class and/or gender is different from our own.
Just for the record: Ms. Siddiqui’s letter was an angry response to a review of the latest Oberlin incarnation of “The Vagina Monologues” (The essay that enraged Ms. Siddiqui was published in the Review on Feb. 16). Ms. Siddiqui, it appears, was incorrectly identified as the author of an ode about African-American women. Ironically, the offending review of “The Vagina Monologues” referred to this ode as “one of the evening’s most well-written pieces.” 

Now, mistakes are mistakes; and it was clearly careless of the Review’s reviewer to attribute this ode to the wrong author. But Ms. Siddiqui isn’t content to correct the record. Ms. Siddiqui is a South Asian international student, and the ode whose authorship was mistakenly attributed to her is about an African-American woman (specifically, the black slave Sally Hemmings). Thus Ms. Siddiqui feels obligated to express her moral outrage at the very idea that anyone could be careless or stupid enough to believe that an ode about African-American issues could possibly have been written by someone (herself) who is in fact South Asian. 

Here are Ms. Siddiqui’s own words: “The article on the Vagina Monologues stated that I wrote the piece ‘An Ode to Sally Hemmings’ on African-American issues. How can I EVER begin to comprehend African-American women’s issues, let alone write about it?…This adds to unnecessary and false ideas as to whom I truly am and what I stand for…(To) say that I wrote a piece on African-American women is to say that I gave a voice to the African-American women. That is a serious underlying allegation.”

What lends a certain pathos to this letter is Ms. Siddiqui’s conviction that her very identity is at stake in this controversy and that any confusion about who she is (and, just as significantly, who she is entitled to “speak on behalf of”) can cause palpable harm. In her own words “(what) needs to be realized by the Review as a whole is that such distorted information can lead to harm (be it physical or mental) to individuals and/or communities. “

Now, once upon a time, before the advent of identity politics, it was simply taken for granted that one of the principle functions of writing and acting (indeed of the arts more generally) is to help us transcend the limitations of our own genetic hardwiring, thereby enabling us to imaginatively project ourselves into the psyches of others. And once upon a time — again, before the advent of identity politics — it was also taken for granted that one of the principle functions of a liberal arts education is to promote precisely this sort of self-transcendence, this imaginative leap “out of ourselves.” The root of the word ‘education’ after all is e-ducere, which means literally, to be lead forth, to be dragged — kicking and screaming, if necessary — out of and away from our own instincts and preconceptions.

Now in closing, I have no idea which Oberlin courses Ms. Siddiqui has been enrolled in this year. But I have to wonder whether any reasonably intelligent young person would actually arrive independently at such ridiculously limiting ideas if it weren’t for the pervasiveness of identity politics in Oberlin’s curriculum. To paraphrase George Orwell, we’re talking about habits of mind so preposterous that only an academic could believe in them.