The Ivory Tower
Yesterday, I became a stack reader at the Getty Research Institute. (L.A. gang, take note!) All one needs to do so is a government-issued photo ID and a school ID proving that you are a graduate student.
Being a stack reader is like joining some elite, intellectual club. (Kind of like enrolling in graduate school.) You have access to the Getty Research library, even the super-quiet, don't-utter-a-word third level. (A quick anecdote: My friend S, who introduced me to the loveliness of the Institute, worked there for a summer. At some point, he had to go assist a professor in need on the third level. When S tried to help him, the professor yelled at him for talking.) All of the levels of the Institute are fairly luxurious for a library, with comfy chairs, fine wooden desks, and display the characteristic, natural light-filled Getty aesthetic. S assures me that the security is so good (and presumably the patrons so trustworthy), that he often leaves his laptop unattended for hours. (I couldn't do it. Even if I lived in a tiny village, I'd still lock my doors. Call me paranoid.) You also get access to the community room for eating and drinking and (drumroll) free parking with your stack reader ID.
People go there to do Serious Work. And it is a fine atmosphere for study. Aesthetically pleasing, modern, spacious, quiet yet comfortable. And yet...
When I am in places like the Research Institute, I can't help feeling the weight of privilege. Perhaps for some people, there is no weight associated with privilege, but I always have to stop and think. Such thoughts are exacerbated when the physical space mimics the social dynamic. The atmosphere at the Getty is so rarefied, literally and metaphorically. One can look out over the masses of Los Angeles from a beautiful hillside building, and, if one so chooses, study only the highest of arts. I have similar thoughts when I sit in the locked graduate study room in the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library. There an intrepid graduate student can look out on the teeming undergrads below and feel thankful that they can't get to her.
Why do I deserve to be in these magnificent spaces? Is it because I was in L.E.A.P. (or "Learning, Experiences, Activities, Projects," i.e. the gifted program) as a child? Because I was a National Merit Finalist? I can assure you that without the smarts that I allegedly have, I would not be able to afford graduate school. When I am surrounded by such scholarly opulence, I think back to the days in which a Person Like Me (female, African-American, etc., etc.) would never have been allowed in it. Scholars in those days probably never gave a second thought to ideas of privilege, taking it as their birthright. And, when I look around, I'm not so sure that mindset isn't still with us. I wonder when or if the day will come that I take such things for granted...
I once withdrew from a course on the sociology of space that addressed the very issues that I have not-so-eloquently addressed above. Maybe I should have stayed in it.
Being a stack reader is like joining some elite, intellectual club. (Kind of like enrolling in graduate school.) You have access to the Getty Research library, even the super-quiet, don't-utter-a-word third level. (A quick anecdote: My friend S, who introduced me to the loveliness of the Institute, worked there for a summer. At some point, he had to go assist a professor in need on the third level. When S tried to help him, the professor yelled at him for talking.) All of the levels of the Institute are fairly luxurious for a library, with comfy chairs, fine wooden desks, and display the characteristic, natural light-filled Getty aesthetic. S assures me that the security is so good (and presumably the patrons so trustworthy), that he often leaves his laptop unattended for hours. (I couldn't do it. Even if I lived in a tiny village, I'd still lock my doors. Call me paranoid.) You also get access to the community room for eating and drinking and (drumroll) free parking with your stack reader ID.
People go there to do Serious Work. And it is a fine atmosphere for study. Aesthetically pleasing, modern, spacious, quiet yet comfortable. And yet...
When I am in places like the Research Institute, I can't help feeling the weight of privilege. Perhaps for some people, there is no weight associated with privilege, but I always have to stop and think. Such thoughts are exacerbated when the physical space mimics the social dynamic. The atmosphere at the Getty is so rarefied, literally and metaphorically. One can look out over the masses of Los Angeles from a beautiful hillside building, and, if one so chooses, study only the highest of arts. I have similar thoughts when I sit in the locked graduate study room in the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library. There an intrepid graduate student can look out on the teeming undergrads below and feel thankful that they can't get to her.
Why do I deserve to be in these magnificent spaces? Is it because I was in L.E.A.P. (or "Learning, Experiences, Activities, Projects," i.e. the gifted program) as a child? Because I was a National Merit Finalist? I can assure you that without the smarts that I allegedly have, I would not be able to afford graduate school. When I am surrounded by such scholarly opulence, I think back to the days in which a Person Like Me (female, African-American, etc., etc.) would never have been allowed in it. Scholars in those days probably never gave a second thought to ideas of privilege, taking it as their birthright. And, when I look around, I'm not so sure that mindset isn't still with us. I wonder when or if the day will come that I take such things for granted...
I once withdrew from a course on the sociology of space that addressed the very issues that I have not-so-eloquently addressed above. Maybe I should have stayed in it.