Some Takes on OSCA

By Ben Rosielle

The co-operative lifestyle: lentils that taste like cigarettes, pasta that tastes like cigarettes, pasta that tastes like pasta, 1 a.m. saveplates, 2 a.m. party clean-up sessions, so on and so on. Depending on who you are, this sentence may fill you with glowing pride or mild distaste. It’s been often said that OSCA is the Oberlin of Oberlin, a bastion of weirdos and hipsters at a school of weirdos and hipsters. Oberlin’s main presence in popular culture is as the butt of many a joke about artsy-fartsy radical liberal arts education, and OSCA occupies a similar position on campus.

Offhand (though nearly always light-hearted) remarks about OSCA’s reportedly cult-like operations peeve but also fascinate me. Why is the image of OSCA as a bunch of (white) skinny nudist barefoot hippie freaks so persistent? Why does everyone think we only eat legumes and rice? The food is leagues beyond the limp, greasy options found at Stevie, and the best co-op meals (dare I say) even outweigh the fabled Saunders mac and cheese. 

I won't claim that OSCA doesn’t have its quirks and limitations, some of which will invariably turn people away for cultural and/or logistical reasons. Yes, I once stumbled into the Harkness lounge to discover my fellow co-opers engaged in a late-night Adrienne Lenker group harmonization session, but I find this kind of OSCA-ism cute rather than insufferable. Co-ops have this reputation for a reason, but how much of it is their fault? I’ll quit with the editorializing and turn it over to the co-opers and non-co-opers of Oberlin to give their takes on OSCA’s place on campus and their relationship with the wider Oberlin College community.

How accurate are OSCA stereotypes?

Clara Mead (Tank): Recently, Tank got an email that said “Save Pyle meals,” and the content of the email was that Pyle is in shambles, nobody’s showing up to their shifts because everybody’s in the circus. Half of the co-op is in the circus.

Eloise Rich (Tank, OSCA President): Not to get psychological about it, but when you’re eating together, often living together, spending every instant together, you’re going to start dressing like each other. Everyone borrows clothes. So then by nature, you’re going to be wearing your friend’s clothes and then the people, the public, the wider world, they’re going to perceive you as all the same. And then you’re all going to be cutting each other’s hair.

Theo Sloan (Harkness, Membership Secretary): The whole idea that people in OSCA are just eating lentils and unseasoned rice and cabbage every day becomes increasingly ridiculous each year. I wish the people saying that could’ve been there for Tank lunch a couple weeks ago, when Roman made Kimchi fried rice with beef strips in it. It was insane. Genuinely one of the most enjoyable meals I’ve had in a very long time.

Theo Preston (AVI): One of my friends went to a Keep dinner the other day, and they had this discussion that lasted pretty much the whole dinner on whether it was okay to force people who don’t eat meat or are kosher to buy meat, cook with meat, and clean up with meat. That’s just a tiny anecdote from one person that I know.

Nishal Vijay (Third World Co-op, Programming and History Coordinator): “Oh my god, they cook and eat their own food. Ew, weird. They starve themselves. They always get naked.” That’s some pretty common rhetoric. If you hear about an organization where they’re like, “We go out under the full moon and sing songs,” of course you’re not going to think they’re actually serious about the money involved, the food involved, the chemicals involved in our kitchen. But we are. God forbid we’re serious and have fun.

Why do people make fun of OSCA?

Mattias RowenBale (Harkness, Marketing Intern): I personally think that it stems from a broad, deep rooted fear of the counterculture. I think OSCA is at the forefront of counterculture movements and sentiments less now than ever before, but it still holds a lot of that association for people. So for folks who are just a little uncomfortable with their own positionality within Oberlin, OSCA’s a really easy target to say, “Oh, at least I’m not as weird as these people. Oh, at least my politics aren’t as wild as these leftist freaks.”

OSCA and privilege

Micah Zhu-Kircheis (AVI): I think people in OSCA have their heads up their asses. I wouldn’t call them oblivious, because they do tend to be very social justice-minded people, but they’re often unaware of the struggles of the people that are around them on a daily basis. There’s someone who told me this story about how the people in OSCA didn’t know how to deal with their financial situation, because they were low income, and weren’t able to pay the down fee to OSCA. It touts itself as an organization that’s for low income people because it’s supposedly a reduced cost of living, but I feel like a lot of the people in OSCA don’t apply the principles they have in theory to practice. I’m not sure how much of that is OSCA versus individual people.

Anonymous non-OSCAn: I sort of see it as a way for people that are pretty privileged to feel less privileged than they are. I think it sometimes feels a little performative. There are people in co-ops that are pretty wealthy, but you’re doing manual labor, washing dishes, cooking food, and the environment isn’t the cleanest. Sometimes I feel like it’s a way for people that have a ton of privilege and a bunch of money to feel more accomplished, or down to earth. 

CM: OSCA is wonderful, but you’re not the royalty of labor or whatever. You’re not better than anybody else because you can mop. Most people can mop.

Anonymous ex-OSCAn: Oberlin is a predominantly white institution, but even for that, OSCA (excluding TWC) is very, very white. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle where people of color see OSCA as this extremely white space, and feel discouraged from joining, and it remains very white because of that. 

How well-integrated is OSCA into the wider Oberlin College community?

Ebun Lawore (Third World Co-op):  I think they’re not that integrated. It’s simply because of the fact that you eat two meals a day in your co-op. Eating is so social, and it determines who you hang out with. Last year, there were people I hung out with because I ate almost every meal with them, and I barely see them now. That alone makes it this insular thing. You can’t change anything about that. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I don’t think there’s that much of a problem being unknown to people.

Sloane DiBari (AVI): Maybe this is just me projecting, but whenever I’m visiting friends in Hark, it feels like I’m intruding. This is an Oberlin manners thing that I have complaints about in general, but I’ll see a group of other people in there that will talk to my Hark friends, but won’t acknowledge me. When I have been spoken to in these places, it’s been to recruit me. If people were more welcoming in a way that wasn’t for the purpose of advertising, then the idea that OSCA is this very welcoming, inclusive space would feel less artificial and constructed.

Would you ever join OSCA?

Natasha Dracobly (AVI): I feel like OSCA and AVI balance each other out. The AVI people give OSCAns their meal swipes so that they can get coffee, and the OSCA people occasionally invite us to OSCA meals. I feel like my position in this world is to be the person who gets asked for meal swipes. I promise I like OSCA. You should all invite me to your meals sometimes, so I can get a break from AVI occasionally. I will give you my meal swipes if you do that. We can all work together in a beautiful way, so that you can get your Azzies and I can get my lentils. This is the way forward.