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----MAKE BLACK THE NIGHT
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August 23, 1999 |
Oberlin College in the mid-'80s was fertile ground for humiliation.
"Identity" politics were gathering steam, and everyone was discovering his or
her oppression. In the larger superstructure of both the college and
society, minorities of all categories still struggled for basic parity. Our
student social life, however, had become a sort of inverted universe: The more
oppressed groups you belonged to, the higher your status. And the higher
your status, the more license you had to publicly call people on their unconscious bigotry. Generally, those of us whose sole claim to oppression was gender had only
white males on whom to take out our anger (and I took mine out in spades). Occasionally, however, someone could gain status through the sheer force of moral indignation and be accepted as an honorary member of a more oppressed
group than her own. These individuals were always the most virulently
righteous when taking other members of their own societal subsection to task for their
sexism, racism, classism or homophobia. Don't misunderstand me. I have no desire to belittle anyone's anger at
injustice by slapping it with the mocking label "politically
correct." College is a violently politicizing time; the sudden awareness
of your personal story as part of a broader societal mosaic can galvanize
phenomenal growth, courage and action. And if some tender feelings get hurt
along the way, I'm not convinced that's always a bad thing, especially if
those feelings have survived 18 years without close examination. Given
all of that, why do I still hate her, after all this time? | ||
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