Evalutating the Quirk Factor: Carleton does as Princeton does as Society does?
I've been wanting to write about this for some time now, but when I'm actually at school, I find it difficult to draw myself away from my books and papers to, you know, draw my mind out. But now it's summer, so no more.
And what brings me to write is race. How original! Not. Anyway. No, more specifically, finding the hard copy of Michelle Obama's senior thesis ("comps" in Carletonspeak) from Princeton on "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." (I'm well-aware that this was posted in February, and that I'm very, very, very late to the party. In my defense, I believe that was right around the time I was in the heat (or rather, the freezer-burn) that was my Winter Term, and thus I didn't read the hard copy of her thesis. Sue me.)
No, what reverberates in me is the uncanny similarity between Michelle's thesis and ones I saw at Carleton this year. Or, indeed, the investigative piece I'm likely to be spearheading this fall for our campus politics/culture magazine (shh!).
Does this alarm me? Possibly. Why is that I see the same things, or very similar, being played out thirty years later?
Half of it, I think, isn't a campus-specific problem. What Michelle Obama thesis says to me, as a student attending a "majority" campus and a liberal arts college with much of the white privilege problems that I'm sure plagued Princeton during Michelle's heyday, are not specific to either campus. Hell, I'm sure every campus has these problems, barring somewhere like Spelman or Howard. And I'm by no means advocating for the end to our problems by some sort of separtist, let's-all-go-to-our-color-coded-corners type of "fauxlution."
I really do think the problem is bigger than one campus. So, once I make my way through Michelle's thesis, I'll ask myself: can this be applied to Everywhere? To, dare I say it, Society? (Yes, I betcha all the lakes in Minnesota.)
And that's why I often struggle with race at Carleton. How much is it, I often once, that we're fighting against the blunt racial divides so ingrained in a very much NOT post-racial society, which has been aligned and zoomed into focus so well in our 2,000-person microcosm that we ("I?") can't go, oh, 24 hours without critiquing white privilege and racial divides on campus? Would I critique this anywhere?
Sometimes I think that maybe Carleton (Princeton for Michelle Obama, too?) might put these divides in super-high-focus because of its (a) Midwest location (one of my (former) classmates went so far as to transfer to Pomona for this reason, a nearly identical school to Carleton barring its sunny SoCal location, IMHO) or, on a more complex note, (b) its "dorky" reputation.
Hoooboy. Yes, I said it. I was attracted--AM attracted--to my college because it's got this fab reputation of being all sorts of "quirky" and "dorky." See: this or this.
It was this "character" that I fell in love with. "Hey!" I said, "I'm full or quirk and dork and fun-loving and awkwardity!" (And I am. I so very, very am.) But I suppose what didn't cross my mind was who else could freely call themselves these adjectives as well.
I'm talking about "acting white" and the slams people get for doing so. At face value, my qurkiness and dorkiness could be percieved as "white." Take Harry Potter. I mean, except for a few characters (such as Quidditch captain and personal obsession Angelina Johnson) Harry's coded as pretty, well... white. (Even in this video, Harry's white, while surrounded by black men.) All these statements are based on stereotypes, generalizations and cold, hard and ugly presumptions and long-entrenched-and-should-be-removed biases and bases-- I realize this is problematic. (In my defense: I've got to base these thoughts on something, and without chunks of time and some hefty questionarring, this is what I'm left with.)
In sum, I guess here's what it all boils down to: Michelle Obama's thesis seems to suggest that race problems at colleges, especially private, majority-white, expensive college, are--GASP!--not unique. Shocker. But I'm left wondering if why I still see these problems at my contemporary college are because the potent combo of nice, private school + "dorky and quirky" character = even more race-related issues? Or is that we've all really gone very close to nowhere, and these problems are highlighted on campuses. But how to even prove my potent statement of "quirky character = a white character"? It's got heady racist assumptions and stereotypes just waiting to trickle out of my hesitant words.
I'm attempting to finish up this entry with some nice, punchy ending---we used to say "schmappy" back in my High School Journalism Days of Yore---but I'm really having trouble. Could be because my writing skills (skillz?) have been getting rusty; I'm no longer the twice-a-day or once-a-day blogger I once was, or the high school paper columnist, or even the star English student. But it's more than just a few out-of-shape prose muscles. No, the reason I can't seem to end this entry neatly is because any "tidy" ending is far too out of place for an unresolved issue, and that's underemphasizing. The only words I can think to end my thoughts on this are that, in this case, it's probably true that only time will tell--- but that, along the way, we better make sure our unapathetic asses are doing a fair share of the telling as well.