2004-04-09 - 11:56 p.m.
I love the first days of spring, when it starts to finally get warm enough. I can see the fuzz of green on tree branches that, given a few hot days, will explode into leaves, the daffodils that suddenly seem to be blooming at a full tilt in places which were only bare dirt several days before. The air gets sweeter, though still tinged with winter chill, and people start to come out of winter hibernation. There seems to be a collective sense of relief on New York’s narrow sidewalks, an excitement to start living outside again. It seems everyone at school is full of a collective antsyness. We are ready for the semester to be over, even though six weeks still loom ahead of us. We’re ready to ditch our books and papers for summer jobs, summer school, summer travels and other such adventures.
Early this week I had the great pleasure of setting up a workshop/discussion with my “wicked smart” penpal Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, who currently hails from Toronto, Canada (and has a diaryland at http://brownstargrl.diaryland.com), and actually went to Lang back in the mid-nineties. She gave a talk entitled “Letters From The War Years” about organizing in communities of color post- 9/11 from her perspective as a queer, mixed race woman. She also talked about her involvement in what came to be called “the mobilization” at the New School which was demanding that certain professors of color not be fired, better contracts for security guards and a myriad of other issues around hiring practices, financial aid, and representation of people of color at the University. It was really inspiring to have someone who’s work I have admired for several years (she’s been published many places, including the zine Bamboo Girl and the book Colonize This!) and someone who crosses many “borders” and exists at many “intersections” in both her art, life, and organizing (and the fact that these things are not separated is really key).
Leah brought up a crucial point in her talk about the way liberal arts colleges and academia can be/are alienating for people from working class backgrounds. I thought this was so crucial because I see class attempted to be made invisible at my school (and in greater society) all the time. It even seems like the kids who complain the loudest about being “broke” are the one’s with plenty of financial security, or at least from upper middle class and upper class backgrounds (and I realize this is a totally generalization here). I also think this is an important point because it’s important to remember theory, though extremely important, is not activism. I think about it even at the level of how it feels to sit in classrooms all day- how it takes a lot of focus and where-with-all to survive and succeed in this environment and how I feel like sometimes the only way I am able to do it is because I have the economic privilege to not have to work all the time in order to go to school.
I am not saying that is someone is working class they should not consider academia or that the won’t totally kick ass in that environment, but how liberal arts colleges are not the cure all (I mean, of course we know this, but...). Basically, I think that we always have to consider the “cultural capital” that we have with us all the time. We each bring different kinds of cultural capital with us to each environments and obviously, in most academic spaces a certain kind of upper class white mentality tends to prevail. I think about how I have several generations of people who have gone to college (at least a little bit of college) and worked “professional,” white collar jobs behind me bears on who I am in the classroom.
In many ways I feel like academia must be expanded and challenged to not be so damn alienating, because I think learning, engagement, dialogue, expanded perspectives on the history, society and culture (some of the positive elements I take away from being in school) should be available to all people in a way that they can relate to and feel empowered in. Though sometimes I wonder, is it even worth trying to do this in the “mainstream academy?” I have no idea, but I think it’s so important to also look at how people from working class backgrounds (and other marginalized backgrounds) also have played a really crucial role in shaping and challenging academia, so it’s also important to value these contributions. And so my gratitude goes out to Leah for reminding us of all these issues, because I know many of my peers grapple with them everyday, and it’s also important for me to keep them close, especially as I look towards grad school and teaching in “academic” (and hopefully “non-academic” too) locations in the future.
