By Lekan Aleshe-Shittu, Staff Writer
Hello, friends. I was on YikYak the other day—clearly the repository of all my inspiration—and I came across two posts in quick succession detailing the seemingly never-ending moral and political failings of Oberlin College. Oberlin does indeed have many issues, but those YikYak posts made it rather clear to me how divorced from reality many of us really are. I love to complain as much as the next person, but I think we, by virtue of the bubble we currently inhabit, are quickly losing our grip on the real world. There are many horrors that await us outside our quaint little liberal arts college, and sometimes, when one looks at the conversations we choose to engage in here, the only question that comes to mind is “are you FUCKING serious?”
One of the posts was about the political implications of the choice to play the Harry Potter theme during Organ Pump, and the other argued that a party on campus had been “lesphobic.” I do not write this to diminish what the people who made these posts may have felt; critiquing people’s feelings is a dick move. But I do think that these posts showcase the fact that there is a general lack of awareness regarding how shit the world is outside this place. Let’s use the lesphobic argument as fodder for this conversation. A quick google search lets us know that Oberlin is recognized as one of the queerest colleges in the country. I think I can count the amount of straight people I know on one hand, and as someone who comes from an incredibly conservative context (you could literally be stoned to death for same-sex relations), I am unable to wrap my head around any perceived grievances about queer people’s safety here. People are actively being persecuted on the basis of their identities. Chances are, you, ensconced in the relative peace and security of an incredibly progressive town, are NOT—at least not within the spaces we share with one another.
Are some people on this campus homophobic or lesphobic? Most probably! But the argument—both on YikYak and espoused by students in some of the classes I’ve taken (I’m looking at you, Gender and the Erotic in Islamic Literature)—that Oberlin is somehow an institution that welcomes, celebrates or ignores queerphobia is not only flat-out wrong, but super fucking privileged. Conversations like these make me really, really angry because I have lived in a world where queer people are assiduously abused and denigrated. To hear arguments claiming the same here, in this bubble of rich, white entitlement, is fucking enraging.
It is almost as if many of us have no grasp or understanding of the “real world,” and I am afraid we have become so comfortable here that we will be unable to deal with what it has in store for us. There’s a really frightening reality outside of this place—a world where politicians, lobbyists and tech oligarchs actively labor to destroy all forms of individuality, difference, or diversity. I fear the amount of time we spend legitimizing certain conversations about identity, marginalization, or oppression weakens our ability to fully engage with everyday life. This, undoubtedly, leads us to lose touch with it. We walk into it completely unprepared, thinking that life at Oberlin is reflective of what lays on the outskirts of this weird, fascinating place.
There’s a reason why Oberlin College has a hyperspecific cultural footprint in the United States, and there’s a reason why many people who have never been here think us incredibly insufferable. Think of Girls—all the characters in Lena Dunham’s show (who are famously obnoxious, oblivious and fucking unsociable) are Oberlin graduates. Put exceptionally simply: many of us are out of touch.
In this same vein, I think this “out-of-touch-ness” manifests in interesting ways. Particularly intriguing to me is the constant and consistent blurring of lines: here, the boundaries between discomfort and oppression are nebulous and indistinct—almost ephemeral.
I’ll speak my truth and say that it sometimes feels as though there is a palpable hunger to be oppressed at Oberlin, like marginalization is some sort of fucked up badge of honor, an avenue through which one may acquire moral capital. Someone saying or doing something that makes you squirm, that makes you angry, that makes you annoyed, and most of all, that makes you uncomfortable, is not the same as being subjugated or persecuted by that person. It is this thought, in tandem with the posts from YikYak, that led me to sit and write this. Oppression and discomfort are very different phenomena and it is our tendency to conflate the two that will be our undoing. It is our tendency to conflate the two that makes me very wary of our ability to survive outside of this campus.
For the love of God, we need to lock the fuck in. I have conversations here, or I read something and think to myself, “Wow. We are exactly what those right-wing nutjobs think we are.” There is so much pain and anger outside these walls. And of course, there’s pain and anger here too. But I think we need to do a better job of seeing the bigger picture. Maybe I say this because I am not American, or maybe I say it because I come from a vastly different context where issues are often life or death. I think we need to do a better job of understanding and acknowledging the advantages we’re given just because we happen to go here. I hope you’re doing absolutely beautifully,
All my love,
Leks.
