Like Matt Browner-Hamlin, I too was part of the “Productive Debate, Not Drunken Debate” last Saturday night. However, my night wasn’t productive, but painful and disturbing.
Our “dialogue” was not “fruitful and informative,” nor was it “productive, educational, and intelligent.” Any discussion which ends in throwing beer, calling someone a bitch, and threatening to call the cops is not productive. However, to just look at those events in isolation trivializes and individualizes them. It also makes that Saturday night appear to have been just another drunken, “tragic” night—which it wasn’t. Saturday night was a microcosm of Wesleyan, a perfect example of the racism and complacency (to tolerate and promote oppressive behaviors) framed within “civility” discourse that is overtaking Wesleyan.
So let’s add some context and question what really happened. There were five of us arguing with the people at the party next door about the racism of throwing Hawaiian-themed parties; why did the white woman, dressed up in a grass skirt and lei, choose, out of the five of us, to focus her anger on and throw her beer on the only person from Hawai’i among the five of us? Why did the guys next door threaten to call the cops on the only black person involved in the discussion? What does it mean that they depicted her, but no one else, as yelling “graphic threats of violence”; everyone who was outside was yelling at this point, why did they choose to single out her for punishment and threats? What does it mean that her comment about X-House was drastically misrepresented in order to present an image of an angry black mob?
My point with these questions is that there was much more going on that night besides a discussion of Hawaiian-themed parties. In fact, many of our objections to such a party—the racist and sexist perpetuation of violent stereotypes, the usage of a marginalized body for another’s pleasure, entertainment or learning vehicle—were being enacted all around and right in front of us as we spoke. The structures and beliefs influencing the actions on Saturday night are part of the exact system which makes it ok to hold racist parties and adamantly defends the right to do so.
I also want to question the words “productive” and “fruitful.” The ideas behind these words are what bolster and defend arguments of civility and color-blindness. These ideas exist at a very surface level of conversation and discourse and promote the false belief that what matters is the act of speaking, not the content of the words or actions. So, under this false conception, in our debate on Saturday night, the blatant racism and sexism could be erased by the mere act of “dialogue.” For example, one of the “fruitful dialogues” in which I engaged ended when someone walked away from our discussion, yelling that it was just a party, he could do what he liked, and I should just stay away. Sure, it might have been productive for him. He clearly was not bothered or affected by the racism of Hawaiian-themed parties; therefore the content and the outcome of the conversion were inconsequential. But that is not what I call productive. Judging from his closing statement, he heard or respected nothing of what I said. It is not enough to merely have a conversation, walk away and forget everything. This is not productive; it is the exercise of social privilege.
Another exercise of social privilege and racism is the belief that it is ok, and good, for some people to tokenize others, to use the bodies and experiences of more marginalized people as resources, as learning experiences. In his wespeak, Matt accused us of not teaching the white woman, thereby laying the responsibility for her racism on our refusal to teach her “free of judgment.”
Perspective and context are important when retelling and analyzing any interactions; Matt’s report shows a clear difference in perspective. It’s unfortunate that he neglected to report all the other levels and factors which were present in Saturday’s interactions.
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