OPINION
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Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Students of color: Don’t feel forced to talk identity TROY CLOSSON
DAILY COLUMNIST
the
Spectrum
This essay is part of The Spectrum, a forum in our Opinion section for marginalized voices to share their perspectives. To submit a piece for The Spectrum or discuss story ideas, please email spectrum@ dailynorthwestern.com. During Peer Adviser training this fall, as we practiced facilitating each True Northwestern Dialogue, I always felt most comfortable preparing to lead the diversity and inclusion TND. I’ve talked about both topics before and I’d reflected on experiences directly related to my identities in the past — I wasn’t worried about doing it in the context of my PA group and facilitating a dialogue for others about the same topics. In the breakout session following the TND, my co-PA and I prompted our group to think about aspects of diversity and inclusion. At one point, I asked “what does your identity mean to you?”
My group members shared their answers and eventually moved on to address different questions. But it was hard for me to move past that one. Afterward — and even still — that question stuck with me. What does my identity really mean to me? My high school was much more racially diverse than this campus, so wherever I went, it wasn’t hard to feel like I belonged. When race-related issues would arise in the news, my parents made sure my younger brother and I were fully aware of the implications of being black men in this country. And personally, I felt like I fully understood how my identity informed my perspective in different situations. Before college, being black meant a lot to me. Coming to NU, that hasn’t changed. But the context has. I have always valued my identity. And here, it continues to mean everything to me — but it’s always on my mind regardless of whether I want it to be. That doesn’t mean occasionally I’m not proud to be black or feel disappointed about my identity. It means I don’t always want to feel forced to think about it and how it impacts me. But on this campus, I often am. We’re over halfway done with publication at The Daily this fall. When I applied to be an Opinion Editor, I hoped to bring more people of color onto this staff. But still, I’m one of
the only black people here this quarter. Nearly every time I walk into the newsroom, I don’t see anyone else who looks like me. Even the Opinion desk continues to lack many columnists of color. And it’s hard not to blame myself for the lack of improvement. It’s hard not to take responsibility for the fact that our staff isn’t more racially diverse. Oftentimes, I feel like if anyone should be able to make change, it’s me. Since I’ve been on campus, being in spaces where I’m the only black man in the room has become all-too common. And it’s tough — feeling like you belong isn’t always easy when you don’t see anyone who looks like you. But this quarter, I’ve realized there’s another layer to that. As one of the few black people in many spaces, it’s hard not to feel the pressure to constantly bring issues affecting members of the black community to others’ attention. I’m not disappointed to be talking about these things or uncomfortable doing so, but being the only one available to address certain experiences can be hard and comes with a lot of pressure. Every week, when deciding what to write columns about, I immediately start with ideas that relate to my identity. Lately, I’ve almost felt that if I’m not writing about experiences related to being black, I’m doing myself, other black students and the NU community
a disservice. No one is going to write about these things if I don’t because no one else even shares the same identity. When I first started writing columns, I was honestly excited to talk about issues that affected me because of my racial identity. But feeling obligated to talk about them all the time is hard — even if I want to write about something unrelated, I feel like I need to write about being black. And here I am, writing this. But in the future, I know I have to stop putting pressure on myself to speak about my identity at all times. That doesn’t mean I never want to write columns about diversity or inclusion. But when I don’t, I need to realize that it’s OK not to. My identity means everything to me, but it shouldn’t always have to. To any other students who struggle with this: this isn’t a call to stop talking about your identities, but understand that forcing yourself to constantly be the one to make others woke only disservices yourself. Troy Closson is a Medill sophomore. He can be contacted at troyclosson@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern. com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
Charles Murray’s visit to campus will ignore experiences MARIANA ALFARO
DAILY COLUMNIST
Earlier this week, Ariel Sheffey explained why Northwestern students should be upset about Charles Murray’s visit to campus — a meeting that was surreptitiously slid into NU’s programming as a “lunch for students and faculty.” In extreme detail and with well-backed information, Sheffey wrote about Murray’s racist theories. And while I am upset about him visiting our campus, if College Republicans wants to have a meal with a man who believes black and Latinx people are genetically inferior, let it happen. But the group’s members better not complain when people call them out for it; that would be “snowflake behavior.” Murray twisted science to make others believe non-white people are subordinate; disputing that should not be a partisan issue. It should be a common sense issue, much like so many things we discuss on this campus
— from whether climate change is real (it is), to whether the Affordable Care Act repeal will kill people (it will), to how valuable Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients are to the United States (very). They are still very much worth examining, of course, but these truths should not be drawn on partisan lines. When this happens, when reality is accepted by only one side, debates are reduced to Twitter fights, leaving us unable to move from the most basic of premises. When we get stuck in these arguments, we forget that, at the end of the day, these issues affect real people — humans with beating hearts, with families, who wake up each morning having to carry a burden of proportions many of us will be lucky never to face. When people dispute the existence of climate change, we erase the stories of those who lost their homes, their income, someone they loved or their own lives to rising sea waters, droughts or most recently, hurricanes and massive fires. When people boil down healthcare talk to a tax and money issue, they forget about the thousands whose lives depend on the program, as well as those who love them. When people
dismiss DACA as another disruptive Obamaera policy, they erase the experiences of children who are American in all aspects but one — in paper. By refusing to acknowledge the people impacted by these issues, we strip away not only their humanity, but ours. When Murray says that people like me, who make up around 12.5 percent of this campus’ population, are genetically inferior to nearly 48 percent of the students on this campus, it is not only ridiculous, it is also painful. Not because I feel offended by his lousy attempt at bigotry, but because it erases the many, many reasons why Latinx students at NU are at a disadvantage from their white peers. It erases our struggle, and it erases our humanity. College Republicans said Murray is coming over for lunch because he was in the area. If the members want to pick his brain, they have the right to do that. Freedom of speech is on their side, and I trust them not to pick up his racist tendencies. What is wrong, however, is failing to recognize that they are validating his rhetoric, rhetoric that has been used against others, especially those less privileged. When College Republicans brings Murray
to campus, not only is it giving a platform to lies, it shows it equates the value of his false theories to the experiences and emotions of those he denigrates. It is OK to get angry when people erase the experiences of others — being upset about this does not make someone a “snowflake.” It just means that person is a sentient human. The real snowflakes are those who get upset when they’re called out for endorsing rhetoric that erases experiences. It takes a certain level of sensitivity to be offended when you’re giving a platform to someone who offends so many more. If you’re going to endorse racist theories, then be prepared to take the hit. Because that criticism does not only come from a point of emotion, it comes from points of science and experience, while Murray’s theories come from provenly twisted sources.
will to do anything meaningful. And as Shane McKeon wrote in his series, these institutions benefit from the status quo and thus are incentivized to carry on with business as usual. As long as this remains the case, these institutions will change nothing. In light of this roadblock, several calls to action have focused on the need for individual men, both inside and outside the Greek system, to combat a culture that permits sexual harassment and assault. The imperative for current students to take action is clear, but these calls leave out one key stakeholder: fraternity alumni. Many alumni are understandably apathetic,
having nothing to gain from the Greek system after graduation other than occasional embarrassment. But we’re still important players, and we not only should be motivated to make fraternity life better but also have a unique power to do so. It is alumni, after all, who bankroll the University and keep chapters afloat with our donations, and it is alumni who lend the fraternal enterprise its air of credibility. I imagine many alumni are happy to reminisce about the old days and give little thought to the present, but being removed from campus by time or space does not absolve responsibility. Sexual harassment and assault should not be tolerated
by anyone, anywhere, and those with the most power to effect change have the greatest mandate to do so. So I call on alumni to act. Withhold your donations. Raise your voices. Put pressure on your local and national organizations, and stop perpetuating a system that continues to fail its members and broader campus communities. Fraternities can and must do better, and we need to help.
Mariana Alfaro is a Medill senior. She can be contacted at alfaro@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
It’s time to look at Greek alumni’s responsibility to improve NU fraternities
Northwestern’s institutions are failing students when it comes to improving fraternity culture on campus. This, sadly, as outrage after outrage has shown, is not news. Those in a position to do something about the problem — the University, the Interfraternity Council, individual chapters and their national organizations — lack the power or
— Bobby Pillote McCormick ‘17 Former Daily staffer and IFC fraternity member
The Daily Northwestern Volume 138, Issue 33 Editor in Chief Peter Kotecki
Managing Editors Allyson Chiu David Fishman Garrett Jochnau
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