Op-Ed: Tolerance is not transformative

By Lark Mulligan '11 and Viveka Ray-Mazumder '11

 

Seemingly every year during Gaypril, the Middlebury community witnesses hate crimes that attack non-heteronormative identities. The recent homophobic acts are nothing new to us. Whether they were committed by a single individual, as Dean Longman suggested, or by numerous individuals, these are systematic acts of violence and hatred — not isolated incidents. Condemnation from authority figures after the fact, no matter how well articulated, is not enough to transform a culture and create a truly safe and inclusive community. Next year, this could happen again and could be much worse. Posters could be ripped down, hate speech could be scrawled and students could be harassed or even assaulted, simply because other individuals feel entitled to these acts. Tolerance is not the answer to these crimes.

The problem is not that we have disgruntled queer bashers on campus. The problem is the systems of privilege in place that empower these individuals and render “other” identities invisible or inconsequential. Most of our college population can choose not to think about these incidents. After all, they aren’t the ones who have to watch their backs smoking a cigarette in front of the Queer Studies House at night. They don’t have to start locking their doors. They don’t even have to bring it up in conversation with their friends. After incidents like these, life returns to normal for people with privilege.

If we frame these incidents as a problem with privilege rather than a series of isolated incidents, we start to notice a few things. For one, we realize that these are systematic, repetitive, hateful acts. We realize that most of us are complicit in the systems that allow these acts to occur — and that many of us even benefit from them in one way or another. We realize that the problem isn’t ornery individuals “working through some personal identity issues,” but the heteronormative and transphobic structures that determine who we can live with, where we go to the bathroom, which parties we go to, who we hook up with, which classes we take, what clothes we wear, whether we feel comfortable doing the marriage activities in Spanish class, which jobs we get accepted to and even who we feel comfortable around.

Maybe our school is “awash in a wave of homophobia,” and maybe it isn’t. But one thing is for certain. Our campus is awash in heterosexual privilege, in cisgender privilege, in white privilege, in male privilege, in able-bodied privilege, in class privilege, in fear — not just of the “other,” but of letting go of the benefits most of us take for granted. When Middlebury decided to set itself on the road to carbon neutrality, it wasn’t because we realized that a few students were running around turning on the lights in all the buildings, trying to intimidate the nice folks in SNG. We started writing policies oriented toward carbon neutrality because we realized that everybody was benefiting from a carbon-intensive system; everybody was printing too much, leaving on lights, taking long showers and so on. Everyone was complicit. So what did we do? The devoted activists and experts in SNG and the Environmental Council started a paradigm shift, and changed the way we power our school.

I’m suggesting that the Administration look to the devoted activists and experts in the WAGS Program, in FAM, in MOQA, in WOC to start a paradigm shift of a different sort. I’m suggesting that we change the way we empower our school. We all need to question our own power and privilege. Rather than wagging our fingers at an invisible enemy, why don’t we wrap our hands around our tangled mess of privilege, pull it up by the roots, and shake off the dirt? We can’t expect everything to change if we simply increase visibility of the queer community. We need to change our culture, and the way that all identities are either rewarded, erased, or punished. While a healthy queer community is definitely necessary for creating a paradigm shift, we can’t expect to effect fundamental change without creating more visibility of privilege — and challenging it.

So how can we challenge privilege? We can challenge privilege by becoming aware of the heteronormative language embedded in assigned course materials and beginning critical dialogues that address queer perspectives. We can challenge privilege by amending distribution requirements to more equitably represent a diversity of cultures and experiences. We can challenge privilege by restructuring bathrooms to become more accessible to all bodies and identities. We can challenge privilege by challenging our own identities, and transforming the way we empower our school.

The following members of the staff, faculty, and administration support the message of this letter: Karin Hanta, Catharine Wright, Ximena Mejia, Dean Matt Longman, Professors Sujata Moorti, Heidi Grasswick, Kevin Moss, Laurie Essig, Ellen Oxfeld and Susan Burch.