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Dear Alix and Iris,

I had to wait a couple of days to write this Wespeak so that I could cool down, collect my thoughts and respond in a coherent and considerate manner because there are some issues that should be straightened out.

First things first… Iris, that night there was no Hawai’i-themed party and the Beta brothers have never been involved in one. That happened a while back and it was thrown by a separate fraternity. You did say what you wrote about coming to X-house. However, you said that directly to me when we were having a quiet, one-on-one conversation. Later, when tensions rose, you screamed, “Come to X house and see what happens.” Instead of denying your misstep, you should have apologized. And when you write ‘yells and threats’ I don’t know what you are referring to. No one threatened you. I did mention without yelling that I would call public safety (not the cops, Alix) if you and your friends did not leave, because people at my house felt threatened. You came to MY living space, searched ME out, lectured and attempted to coerce ME for hours, but you felt threatened? That is just not a fair accusation and it shows a mean-spirited character that is willing to lie and slander in order to “misrepresent” me as some verbally abusive misogynist racist. Thanks a lot, that’s really productive.

I felt offended all night long, but I listened, and tried to cooperate and understand. A lot of what was said had me rethinking my prior position on the race-themed parties. In fact, I think that I have changed my mind considerably even after all of the rude remarks and jokes at my expense. I asked Kendra if she wanted a beer from inside, and she said no, because she thought I was going to roofie her. Are you serious? Iris said that all the girls that were at my house were “stupid bitches.” I was told that my whole life was meaningless unless I was changed completely by a couple of people. The whole time I listened and did not argue or get angry. But I had been searched out for a reason. Accusations HAD to be made against me and a fight HAD to ensue for the accusers to get any satisfaction. If the point of this conversation had been positive and not combative it may have been productive. This conversation/lecture was initiated by extremely DRUNK people who clearly do not remember the events as they actually happened and were looking for trouble. Well done, you managed to find it.

This is not a case of right and wrong, as you may think. It is a case of unproven, differing perspectives and opinions. There is no room for coercion (even if it is done by the “minority”) because it leads to tyranny and oppression. Would you replace one oppressive regime with another? I am rethinking my stance on a lot of issues and I appreciated the new ideas that were brought to my attention. In the future, I will actively pursue avenues of a more progressive nature. But don’t you ever come to my house, look for me, yell at me, threaten me and then try to turn it around to make me look like the bad guy. Some of you were VERY intoxicated and that is NEVER the time for a serious debate. If you want to talk more feel free to come on over, my door and mind is always open. Have a nice day.

In regards to Zil Jaeger’s Nov. 11th Wespeak, “Racism? Homophobia? We got it!” Zil, I don’t know if this comes as a surprise to you or not, but racism, homophobia, and oppression are institutionalized in the United States. You make a few good points, and your examples are used well, in the sense that you successfully shock the reader using vivid examples of what you call, “racism, homophobia, and sexism.” I am sorry you had a frustrating experience a few weekends ago, but just as you have taken the liberty to share your frustrations, I would like to share some of mine. These aforementioned frustrations occur on a regular basis as I try to read between the lines of ignorant Wespeaks. What are you saying? Are you taking it upon yourself to publicize all forms of oppression on campus? It seems, rather, that you are taking the opportunity to blame all people of “white” phenotype and “straight” identification. Your well-intentioned message gets lost in your own confusion, bias, and masochistic tendency which so easily transfers blame onto large, ambiguous groups of people, whom you choose to represent with language that is ill-suited to further your cause. (Would it be presumptuous for me to assume that you are including yourself in this group of white-oppressors you so broadly describe? Do you forgive yourself for your phenotypic-whiteness because you are female?) This makes it hard for me to agree with anything you say, not because I don’t presume that you have good intentions, nor because I don’t attempt to fight oppression in my own right. Rather, your anger and frustration lead you to overt generalizations and misconceptions. You are not only perpetuating the ‘black-white’ and ‘homosexual-heterosexual’ dichotomies, but further alienating people from important issues because they are not the direct recipients of hatred. You apply blame without creating an intellectual or structural framework, and appear, like most Wesleyan students, to react publicly and vocally using terminology and ideology that is fundamentally flawed. I write this in solidarity with your cause (or at least my perception of your cause) but vehemently against your choice of expression. Be assured that I have considered not publishing this, out of concern that I might endure criticism and be labeled as the ‘malevolent other’, but my concern for myself has been overpowered by the grief, fear, hopelessness and sadness I feel when I think about BOTH the perpetuation of oppression AND the blatant misrepresentation and misapplication of blame towards those not necessarily responsible.

When I first read the articles in a recent Argus regarding multiculturalism and the appropriation of other cultures, I was a bit skeptical as to the seriousness of this issue. So I did my own investigation.

My first discovery was a fenced in backyard in the North End. From this backyard, I heard suspicious sounds—a strumming of some sort—a stringed instrument—a ukelele? Yes, a ukelele. Upon closer inspection, I came upon dozens of racist hate-mongers, most claiming they were between the ages of six and “six and three quarters,” wearing leis, grass skirts, and garments ignorantly and callously referred to as “Hawaiian shirts.” These young oppressors were consuming an entire culture, not to mention cookies and cake. They also ate pizza, but not just any kind of pizza…they ate Hawaiian pizza. I was appalled. As someone who has visited Hawaii on several occasions, I have developed a strong appreciation of the culture: from their gracious airport employees to their breathtaking resort beaches to their always prompt room service. Lest you think I only had a typical tourist stay in our 50th state, I will tell you about the native experience I had at a “luau” (loo-OW). There was roasted pig, fire eaters, dancers, and a comedian! I learned some of the language too (“Aloha” translates to “hello,” “good-bye,” “peace,” “hate,” and “stop oppressing me with your multicultural imperialism”). I would say that I am somewhat of an expert on Hawaii, though I admit I do not understand how it is so warm there when it is so close to Alaska.

My second discovery involved not so much a culture, but a lifestyle. By doing a quick search on the “World Wide Web” for the word “lesbians,” I came upon 549,394,602,890 websites. It took me nearly nine straight hours alone in my room to research all these! You wouldn’t believe the amount of appropriation and exploitation of lesbian culture that I found! There were all sorts of lesbian activities being displayed for mainstream audiences, such as kissing, touching, sex, fixing the carburetor on a ’91 Buick, etc. I was shocked.

You might think we Americans are the only ones who consume and appropriate and demean and destroy…but you’d be wrong. The other day I turned on my television to watch some NBA action only to see Yao Ming (sound like a native?) appropriating our NATIONAL (as in NATIONAL Basketball Association) culture, wearing a Houston Rockets jersey. How can we sit idly by and watch Houston culture be marginalized and turned into a commodity by this 8 foot 10 oppressor?

After that investigation, I realized a few things. Cultures should keep to themselves. Learning or being involved in another culture is imperialistic. In fact, even mentioning people from another country is probably better left undone. Unless you actually plan on moving to another country for many years and being immersed in the culture, it is wrong of you to try and understand it in any respect without getting the whole story. If you are white, make sure you ONLY wear things that represent YOU (i.e., J.Crew sweaters, golf pants, white robes and hoods, etc). Now if you’ll excuse me, more lesbian websites need investigating.

It was like Christmas—although for once I actually felt included—as I ascended the steps from the Campus Center and the brand new Olin lights shone gaily upon the scene for the first time. As I approached the Club O smoking lounge, I started planning what I would say to the gathered crowd, as I always do when I am about to see a bunch of people I secretly want to impress. (First I decide what I am going to say, then I figure how to say it without it sounding rehearsed.) My lips were quivering on the brink of what I thought was a brilliant, “Okay, so which one of us is going to write the wespeak?,” when I gradually realized no one was there. Olin steps. There in front of me. Empty. I slowly about-faced in bewilderment, and was struck in the face with the reason why. While the lampposts are quite quaint, the floodlights mounted at their bases are blinding. Olin steps are now a very inhospitable place, a bona fide health risk, if you ask me. My lips relaxed into a frown and I murmured, “I think I’ll write the wespeak myself.”

First, and most importantly, I truly appreciate the execution of any projects on campus that are done in the name of visibility, as this new lighting contraption ostensibly is. In fact, last year when I served on the WSA, I probably voted on or may have even sponsored a resolution calling for better lighting in front of Olin. If I learned one thing on the WSA, it’s that money for things like this is not easy to come by, and the bureaucracy involved makes these projects fairly impossible. Indeed, the new lights have probably been on order for several years now, and it’s entirely possible that the lampposts’ 19th century look is not retro, but rather fashionably late. In any case, I salute the work and initiative it took to make this happen, and hope to avoid sounding like the whiny, spoiled Wesleyan student that I most certainly am.

Having said that, I wish to point my criticism back at the frigging floodlights. Is there a clause somewhere in the campus master plan requiring that all funding dedicated to campus safety be matched by efforts to make Wesleyan’s crown jewels more conspicuous? Or was the stipulation that if we make the Olin lawn more visible, we’ll also have to do something about all those dirty hippies loitering about? If that’s the case, it seems to have worked out pretty well.

But oh, how we will miss those old floodlights, the ones right up against the colonnade. They only blinded you if you went right up there and looked straight down into them. In the winter, they were our campfires, and in the summer, just regular lights. Plus, they looked so rad streaming up the columns like that, especially when they were all rainbow-colored.

But the loss of the old floodlights is barely felt through the cutting pain that one feels glancing into the new. And it’s hard to avoid, sitting out there. Whether we like it or not, the human eyes are like moths, hardwired to seek light, incapable of learning from experience, no matter how debilitating. For the first time, we are reminded how undisciplined we are, moreso while sitting outside than we are within the library walls.

The question is, will the step subculture survive?

If it does, it will consist mainly of fools, or those with sunglasses, and it will be infinitely more entertaining to stand behind the floodlights, obscured from the stoop-sitters’ view, periodically wandering out in front just to see them all squint and shield eyes with hands, anxiously trying to determine whether you are somebody for whom they should be planning a pithy saluation.

Some of my best moments at Wesleyan, and certainly my best conversations (significant because of the setting, yet terse because of the clock) took place in the warm upward glow of the old lights. The laughter there always sounded relished, and the sympathy sincere. Call me sentimental and you’d be right. I’m just a senior who loves this place, and I’ve been a little choked up of late. But I’ve been out there four times already tonight, just to make sure my complaints about the floodlights are really warranted. So far, I’ve found an empty stoop every time. Well-lit, but empty. You tell me the last time that happened to you.

Ben Doleac’s response to Jameson Walthers’ critique of the two rap reviews Doleac wrote for the Argus this semester (“Outkast’s final album goes out with a bang,” Oct. 10 and “Not So Ugly: Atmosphere’s ‘Seven’s Travels’ engages listener,” Oct. 28) fails to substantively address Walthers’ apt criticism. Doleac’s response has inspired me to re-read Walther’s wespeak and both of Doleac’s reviews as a means of moderation. Despite my distaste for Doleac’s reviews, the dialogue his reviews inspired has proved the most compelling discussion I have ever read about the often poor quality of the Argus. Before articulating my position, I’d like to thank both Walthers and Doleac for speaking their minds and inspiring me.

Doleac’s response initially evokes the idea of critical “authority.” Specifically, he claims that Walthers’ wespeak denies rock critics the authority to write about rap music. After reading Walthers’ writing several times, I am confident that this is not the case. Instead, Walthers takes issue with Doleac’s unwillingness to approach the rap genre on its own terms. That Doleac possesses “some 50 rap albums” is of absolutely no consequence, for, as I see it, good criticism has everything to do with understanding and nothing to do with consumption. Doleac is writing for a supposedly intellectual student newspaper, not for the commercial music press, which, for all intents and purposes, gets paid to help labels sell records. It seems to me that this criticism is rightly aimed, not only at Doleac’s misunderstanding of the rap genre specifically, but more importantly at his misunderstanding of the concept of musical genres in general. It is impossible, or at least irrelevant, to analyze a record without coming to terms with the formal principles of the genre. For example, Doleac’s comment about Big Boi’s “Flip Flop Rock,” that he thinks “Jay-Z’s tendency to refer to himself as ‘Young Hov’ [in the chorus of the track, which calls out the names of the three MCs featured on the track] is especially irritating.” Calling out names has been a common device throughout the entire history of hip-hop, occurs in the proto-hip-hop reggae “toasting” of the 1970’s, and probably has even deeper historical origins (with which I am, unfortunately, unfamiliar). If Doleac had acknowledged this in his review, he might have been able to explain his critical position. Perhaps he was trying to point out that Jay-Z’s macho, narcissistic style, which might be considered traditional (even conservative) at this point in the history of rap music, seems out of place in what is in many ways, a progressive and experimental album.

The second part of Doleac’s response claims that Walthers unfairly attacks the review for their “aesthetic principles.” This is also not the case. The problem is that Doleac’s prose fails to articulate any aesthetic principles. Instead, he has recourse only to cliches and platitudes. Big Boi’s party tracks “provide thrills.” Outkast’s music inspires his to “move [his] ass as well as [his] brain.” The Strokes “possess a complex melodicism.” Such statements are almost entirely devoid of criticism. They communicate practically nothing, other than their author’s subjectivity and his claim to have listened to and liked or disliked the records in question.

I am not sure that Walthers’ criticism of Doleac’s reviews went far enough. Although I respect the time and effort that people are taking to write about music in the Argus, I do not understand why most of what is covered gets covered at all. The Argus rarely features information about music on campus. There is almost no coverage of campus bands (perhaps a couple of articles a year), very little coverage of faculty composers, usually no coverage of senior thesis concerts, and certainly no coverage of graduate recitals, which are often very exciting and well-attended. The Argus doesn’t even print information about concerts by musicians brought to Wesleyan by WESU, the Campus Center Concert Series, and numerous other groups. I’ve worked on putting together three large hip-hop shows during my time at Wesleyan, and the Argus has never even thought to ask to do a print interview with, for example, Aesop Rock or Mr. Lif, the rappers who “inspired” Doleac to get the new Atmosphere record in the first place. Information about music at Wesleyan is not available anywhere. Instead, we read inferior reviews of albums that many people on campus know about, or would know about if they ever opened a magazine, turned on MTV, or listened to the radio. Please, Argus, give us more news about Wesleyan. There are plenty of other places to turn if we want to figure out whether to buy the latest Outkast record.

headlights at olin.
bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,
bad, bad, bad. fix please.

(Author’s note: I wrote this editorial the same day Jameson Walthers’ critique was featured, and submitted it one day before the deadline for Wespeaks published in Friday’s paper. For reasons I can’t comprehend, it was never printed. I resubmitted the editorial with the conviction that, though some of my response’s urgency may have been lost, its necessity wasn’t.)

After Jameson Walthers’ pointed critique of my first two CD reviews for the Argus, I feel obliged to respond. Walthers makes some very good points about my reviews; I am approaching this stuff from a rock perspective, and despite possessing some 50 rap albums, I’m no authority on hip-hop. That said, I’d like to point out that I make no pretenses to being a maven of said subject. To be honest, I’m no authority on any one particular genre. My interests in music are broad-based and continue to broaden, and indie-rap itself is a subculture within a subculture (as is indie rock, of course). I was initially hesitant about reviewing Seven’s Travels because my knowledge about the group wasn’t as deep as I would’ve liked it to be.

That said, Walthers seems to imply in his critique something that, to me, is a troubling notion; the idea that rock scribes don’t have the “authority” to write about rap. This despite the fact that rock critics often do write about rap, soul aficionados write about rock, punk lovers rave about old country music, and scads of writers praise artists who sing in languages they can’t understand. These kinds of interactions are what cultural dialogues are predicated upon, and I for one don’t believe that my relative lack of knowledge about a genre or even an artist makes my opinion any less valid.

As regards the writing style that Walthers calls into question, I can’t defend myself on matters of aesthetic principle. I will say, however, that there was a paragraph I wrote in a revised version of my article on Seven’s Travels, which was not published due to an e-mail glitch, in which I did cite some of Slug’s lyrics. It reads as follows:
It’s hard not to think of Eminem when listening to that particular cut [“Trying to Find A Balance”], which mixes paranoia and grandstanding in a fashion not unlike that of Mr. Mathers, as the following lines attest: “In the days of kings and queens I was a jester / Treat me like a god or they treat me like a leper / You see me move back and forth between both / I’m trying to find a balance, I’m trying to build a balance”. While Slug is no jester on the level of Slim Shady, he possesses a maturity and clarity of perspective that Eminem has yet to attain. He criticizes the girls who’ve done him wrong, but he doesn’t stoop to sexist swill or take cheap shots; in a welcome advance, Seven’s Travels contains nothing along the lines of “Make noise for the women who swallow stuff,” an utterance heard on God Loves Ugly. Moreover, while the first several tracks brim with intense frustration and rage, Slug’s lyrics rarely turn nasty.

Walthers’ critique of my writing largely centers on his belief that I don’t pay enough heed to lyrics. I do listen to the lyrics, but the first thing that hits me whenever I play an album is the music. It often takes 20 listens or so before the lyrics really start to sink in, and given the time constraints of writing a review for a paper I didn’t have the luxury of hearing the album that much. I think Walthers is keenly aware that hip-hop writers focus much more on lyrical content than many rock writers do, and unless a phrase really jumps out at me (which happens much more frequently when I listen to mercurial MCs like Kool Keith or Ghostface Killah) I don’t tend to hone in on lyrics until much later.

I’d like to mention as well that the inaccurate headline touting Speakerboxxx/The Love Below as Outkast’s final album was not mine. I considered informing my editor that the rumors of Outkast’s breakup were mere hearsay, but as it was my first article for the paper I thought criticizing editorial decision probably wasn’t too wise. Jameson Walthers probably knows a lot more about hip-hop than I do, and I would encourage him to write for the Argus. I happen to know an awful lot about popular music in general, though (as he may as well), and I don’t think my relative outsider status disqualifies me from writing about hip-hop effectively.

Ms. Shrier,

Ms. Greathead would like to respond to “I hope you were aiming for sarcasm.” She was, and apologizes for her failure to convey that. Have a nice day. –Kate

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.

I had a frustrating weekend two weekends ago. While I was walking home from radical cheerleading practice, a white man stuck his head out of his window and shouted “faggot” at me. Unfortunately, I was not surprised, as i had just learned from some friends that they too had recently been called racist and homophobic slurs. On Saturday night, a student of color was verbally assaulted and had a drink thrown on her by a white non-Wesleyan student for engaging in an explicitly racial conversaton. That same night, as my housemate was walking home, some white men on a house porch harrassed him for holding hands with his boyfriend. Another queer frend told me about how uncomfortable and physically threatened she felt at a DKE party when she overheard a white DKE alum joking with his friends about chasing Mexican people in their work as border patrol guards. He also exclaimed that they should stop letting gay people into Wes.

These incidents relate to one another in that they all reflect the racism, homophobia, and sexism embedded in our society and perpetuated by people in the Wesleyan community. I am angry and disheartened that there is not even basic tolerance at Wesleyan for people’s differences. It is the responsibility of every single person here to build a respectful community. Creating a safer atmosphere means challenging racism, homophobia, sexism, and all the other isms that result in psychological and physical assaults on our peers’ minds, bodies, and social well-being. I’m sick of white people shutting their eyes to broader systems of racism and straight folks who refuse to challenge homophobic attitudes. Shape up Wes, shape up.

PS: These are the incidences I heard about or experienced two weekends ago. I’m sure there are more, and if you are interested in recording yours to make known the pervasiveness of racism, homophobia, and sexism on our campus then you should write me at ejaeger@wesleyan.edu