OBERLIN’S STUDENT CULTURE MAGAZINE READ ONLINE AT THEOBERLINGRAPE.COM
Editors-in-Chief
EST. 1999 DECEMBER 15, 2017
Bad Habits Writing Team
Jake Berstein Luke Fortney Content Editors
Production Editors
Molly Bryson Ian Feather Isabel Klein Casey Redcay
Hannah Berk Ben Guterl Gabe Schneier Leora Swerdlow
Business Manager Eddy Tumbokon Web Editor Ezra Goss
Photo Editor Emma Webster
Julia Halm Zoe Jasper Isabelle Kenet Leon Pescador Copy Editors Juan-Manuel Pinzon Jack Rockwell Julie Schreiber Jackson Zinn-Rowthorn Olive Sherman Liam Russo Benjamin Silverman Sam Schuman Keerthi Sridharan
Dear Dake, A Letter to the Associated Press from the Un-Associated Press On December 10th, 2017 Dake Kang, a reporter from the Cleveland branch of the Associated Press published an article insightfully titled, “Racial dispute at beloved bakery roils liberal college town in Ohio.” Although this story is factually correct, it barely skims the surface of the student protests of Gibson’s Bakery. What’s worse, I’m quoted in this technically-true-but-notreally-true story. It all started on Friday, December 8th when I receive a phone call from Dake. He told me he was working on a story about the Gibson’s lawsuit. I’m not used to national reporters calling me for interviews, but I am used to Oberlin’s conversations being under a national microscope. We saw this in 2016 when a New Yorker reporter, Nathan Heller, spent three hours in Oberlin and decided he could paint an accurate portrait of the ’new activism of liberal arts colleges.’ The story was called,
“The Big Uneasy: what’s roiling the liberalarts campus?” What is interesting in both cases is the use of the world ‘roils’. Roil(v.): to muddy waters by disturbing the sediment. What is so poignant about this choice of words, and an idea that neither articles address, is that the sediment was, and always has been in the water. Student’s at the Gibson’s protest were not responding to some novel idea that the Gibson’s might exhibit racist behavior, they were simply kicking up sediment that had always been there. Sediment that looks no different from that which has been kicked up in protests across the U.S. When Dake called and asked if he could interview me about the context behind the Gibson’s lawsuit, the first thing I ask him is if he’s ever been to Oberlin before. He says he came for three hours the day before and chatted with some folks in town. This was a red flag that I chose to ignore. Maybe it was
CORRECTIONS FROM DEC. 1, 2017 ISSUE The Grape published an article by an anonymous author in its most recent Bad Habits section titled "WOBC Cult Recruitment Down 40% Compared to Last Year." In writing the article, the author attributed fictitious quotes to Julian Meltzer, Kyle Roach, and Joey Shapiro without obtaining permission from these sources beforehand. This error was brought to our attention before we went to print, and The Grape staff responded by removing the piece from our online issue, writing replacement content, and paying our printer's an additional fee to make sure that the article was not printed. Despite our best efforts, the article made it to print version of our paper. In the end, it does not matter what our staff attempted because our efforts were ultimately foiled by a printing error that was out of our control. We would like to apologize to those affected by what the editors have agreed was a non-consentual use of names and a lapse in journalistic judgment.
because I was excited to talk to a reporter; maybe it was because I foolishly thought I could convince him to give up on telling this story entirely. We had a conversation over the phone that lasted roughly two hours. He asked a few specific questions, but mostly I was just trying to explaining how nuanced and complex the Gibsons situation is and how, as someone who is also trying to tell this story in a podcast with Luke, it is going to be nearly impossible to tell it well with a such a short deadline. Despite my warning, Dake went on to write a story that is now featured on Fox News, the Washington Post, ABC News, the Chicago Tribune, and even on Breitbart. As I said before, the story is factually correct, but it doesn’t convey the truth. The story began with a fact: “Students at Oberlin College have long enjoyed pastries, bagels, and chocolates from Gibson’s Bakery.” True. Some students have enjoyed shopping at Gibsons. But, other students, most of whom are students of color have chosen not to shop at Gibson’s long before the incident last year for feelings of discomfort and racial profiling. The story then continues with another fact: “the dispute began in November of 2016.” True. This dispute did begin then. But, this was not the first of its kind and certainly won't be the last. Dake then falls into a trap that many reporters trying to explain Oberlin have fallen into—interviewing retired professor
Roger Copeland. To Copeland, “It's just counterproductive to bend that anger towards a small family business that to my knowledge is not guilty of the sort of racial profiling that people accuse it of.” This passage encompasses Dake’s only attempt to understand the validity of the claims of racism. True, to Copeland’s knowledge, Gibson’s is not guilty of racial profiling. But Copeland is not, and should not be considered, an authority on this issue. Dake didn’t interview anyone from town who may actually be subject to racial profiling by the story. Instead, he interviewed Copeland, a white and irrelevant retired professor, Dave Gibson, the owner of the bakery, Kameron Dunbar, a Black student senator, and me. From Kameron, Dake took a one line quote taken out of context. From me, he took my description of what people outside of the issue think, and claimed it as my own. Like I said, we’re used to this at this point. We’re used to reporters coming into Oberlin and making sweeping statements based on conversations with a few people. I never expected to be one of those few people. If it were to happen all over again, I would tell Dake that I wasn't the right person to ask. Instead of trying to answer his questions, I'd direct him to the people who know the truth and not just the facts. Contact Editor-In-Chief Jake Berstein at jberstei@oberlin.edu.
FRONT COVER BY XANDER SOMOGYI. BACK COVER BY PATRICE DICHRISTINA.