Irony is never lost on an English teacher. In the last hour, I have gone from sitting in my East Hall office with some of my colleagues, discussing Tufts students' resistance to conversations about racial, class, gender and sexual inequalities, to sitting on my couch, reading about the most recent racially-motivated hate crime on Tufts campus. The disconnect between students' tendencies to deny power imbalances in our culture, believing racism and gender oppression are relics of a bygone past, and this obvious evidence of student bigotry and racial violence illustrates the need to continue to initiate these conversations in our academic community, despite the discomfort and resistance they produce.
Yes, hatred and bigotry exist here at home; in the rarefied, "P.C." environment of Tufts, in Massachusetts - the bastion of blue state liberalism. Contrary to popular student opinion, the age of political correctness did not signal the end of bias or discrimination - it merely masks the institutional presence of sexism, racism and homophobia under a veneer of individual tolerance. And yes, this is what some of us, your professors, have been trying - and often struggling - to get you students to see. Perhaps thinking about a student's recent assault on a Tufts University police officer can teach more effectively than a traditional lesson the danger of maintaining false assumptions about equality in America.
As this Tuesday's Daily reported, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Nov. 23, an intoxicated male student violently attacked an officer when, in responding to the reported disturbance at 185 College Avenue, she attempted to handcuff the student and bring him into custody. The upperclassman (whose right to anonymity is protected by law at this juncture) "grabbed" Officer Burton "by the hair," pulled her down to the ground by her shirt, and "began punching her." Before backup arrived, he had beat her so savagely that he "ripped entire braids from [her] head" and caused "injuries to the head, back, and ribs," all the while "[shouting] racial epithets, including 'n--r,' at Burton, who is African-American." In resisting arrest, the student directed a gamut of racist and homophobic obscenities toward the other arresting officers who arrived on the scene, his insults ranging from 'faggot' to 'Jew boy' to 'fat Italian-American f-k.'"
Based on my experiences discussing racist and sexist violence with Tufts undergraduates, I can imagine several kinds of responses. A sizable minority of students would share the outrage I experienced upon reading of the attack on Officer Burton and its consequent handling. A more typical student reading of this incident would acknowledge the horror of the crime while writing it off as an anomaly. "He's not one of us;" the 'bad apple' theory. This move, while it reduces emotional dissonance, does not teach us how to first own and then solve our social problems. Acknowledging, rather than dismissing, the presence in our community of those who would perpetrate or overlook racist, sexist, homophoic violence is necessary in order to fight against this injustice.
A second response might be to attribute the student's violent attack and hate-filled tirade to his excessive alcohol consumption. While his intoxication may explain this student's temporary loss of control, it does not excuse it. Those students who know the assailant may perhaps be thinking that his rage was "out of character" and he should be let off the hook. The fact remains that such virulent hatred and violent aggression -if rarely expressed in more sober moments - stems from somewhere. These objections serve as apologies for racial bigotry, violence against women, and gay-bashing, a common gesture in a society that prefers to ignore the existence of inequality and oppression in the 21st century.
The ethically questionable move to excuse this student's reprehensible behavior and protect his future interests at Tufts is not limited to some undergraduates. The student "is being charged criminally with disorderly conduct, assault and battery of a police officer, and resisting arrest"; but, campus administrators' punitive measures are disturbingly ambiguous. The Daily reported that Dean of Students Bruce Reitman and Judicial Affairs Officer Veronica Carter said "they plan to proceed with the case depending on how the student responds to the accusations brought against him." What does this mean exactly? If he apologizes, all is forgiven? The kind of sociopathic behavior displayed by this student should under no circumstances be tolerated in our community.
The unjustified protections afforded this student by Tufts administrators reflect the larger operations of white power and privilege in our society. How might public opinion of this case shift if the racial roles were reversed, and a black male student had assaulted a white officer while resisting arrest? Our culture believes that criminality never wears a white face, and that black women who are assaulted are either not really victims (and therefore undeserving of legal protection or recourse) or are somehow responsible for provoking their attacker.
It is difficult to remain ideologically detached from and unaffected by the pervasive hatred and policing of female bodies, "queer" bodies, and "colored" bodies that characterizes our culture. This is precisely why many of the faculty at Tufts (certainly in my department) insist on raising issues of social inequality and cultural politics in our classrooms, perhaps ad infinitum to some of your ears. We do this because oppression is alive and well, and we hope to arm students with a critical awareness of this fact and its implications. Take advantage of the opportunity we present to understand the world that shapes you, so that that when you graduate, you have the knowledge to decide how you want to act in and on that world. As an educator, when I raise these topics in class, I'm not necessarily asking you to align your politics with mine (a statement which may surprise some of my students) - what I am asking is that you align yourself against a politics of hatred. How can a Tufts student accomplish this? The first step is by being receptive to engaging in overtly, perhaps uncomfortably, political discussions in the classroom. The next time you are sitting in class, rolling your eyes when your professor "whines about feminism," or, in analyzing ongoing racism and colonialism "blows things out of proportion" or "overreacts," or, (most cardinal of American sins) says something "communist," try opening up and engaging with his/her point-of-view instead of shutting down. Resist your resistance - turn an impediment to understanding into a tool for analysis.
Closing your eyes to the social diseases that plague us (a privilege in itself) reinforces their oppressive power. Silence and willed ignorance only sustain a culture of hatred.
Robin Mangino is a Ph.D. candidate and adjunct professor in the English department
