o c lby t r a n s di o ie tiogui e d n 019 2
Disorient This is an effort to counterbalance the onslaught of “yay, Colby is great” one gets upon their arrival as a first-year. Aside from being unrealistic, an orientation approach that dwells only on positives is detrimental to student health.
You have come to Colby, presumably having bought the wonders of a “liberal arts institution.” We want to show you that Colby’s image is meticulously curated, and far from the truth. This guide seeks to defamiliarize the frilly version of Colby and lay it raw. You can either question and work against the dominant perspective, or risk slowly and monotonously becoming disillusioned by it. This guide does not cover nearly everything, countless narratives are missing, and ultimately, the guide itself was put together very last minute. But the stories that did make it in are powerful and valid, and we hope you learn from them. The narratives are meant to orient you to the ways you might experience oppression on this campus, and how to deal with it. They also cover the many ways in which you can challenge yourself, question your privilege, and use it to take action against the systems that it operates within. The college often boasts its social justice endeavors and accomplishments, but these only come about because of students who relentlessly push for them. We urge you to get in contact with the people and groups featured in this guide, and look at Colby more critically; We promise it will help you in the long run. We invite you to join us in our shared dissatisfaction that longs for more, and yet appreciates what is already there. * Not everyone who wrote for the disorientation guide is responsible for all the words in it, but we all stand behind the guide as a whole.
We are on indigenous land.
Statement of Land Acknowledgement (by Spanish Professor Michael Martinez-Raguso) We acknowledge that Colby College occupies the lands of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the ancestral home of the Wabanaki people. We pay respect to elders, custodians of the land past and present. We acknowledge that colonization is an ongoing process that takes many forms. Let us consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us here together today, and let us act accordingly.
ella mcdonald
corporate $ Do you ever wonder where you or your friends’ tuition money disappears to, or that hefty gift the Goldfarbs gave last year? Every wonder why it’s not used to pay for your books or a new water fountain in East? Most of colby’s money ends up in its endowment. By the end of the fiscal year 2018, colby reported that its endowment had a market value of $828 million. And these millions don’t sit in a dungeon deep under Eustis. They are busy propping up corporate giants so that colby can get large returns on investments. Colby discloses how $126,050,644 of its money is invested in the Endowment Annual Report. Here are some corporations that Colby has publicly disclosed investing in: Salesforce.com -- colby publicly invests $1,535,160. A software company with a contract with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy. Facebook -- colby publicly invests $1,270,331. The social media platform that has been widely criticized for its censorship policies, dodging responsibility for hate speech on its websites, mishandling and sale of user data, involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program, and use of dirty energy in its offices. Amazon -- colby publicly invests $2,026,276; The corporate giant that resist unionization for its workers, exposes its employees to dangerous working conditions and long hours, and gentrifies neighborhoods across the U.S. colby is complicit in the actions of all of these corporate giants, and more, like Starbucks, Monster Beverage, Visa, and numerous pharmaceutical companies. The rest of colby’s money is in hedge funds and likely linked to much more sinister operations. We cannot know what the remaining millions are invested in unless we ask. The endowment’s purse strings are controlled by the chief investment officer, a man named Hugh J. O’Donnell whose office is Eustis 003. The buildings and infrastructure we directly benefit as colby students from comes from ethically questionable sources. For example, Bob Diamond made his money as the former group chief executive of Barclays Bank. Among many other scandals, Barclays is known to have helped fund President Robert Mugabe’s land reforms in Zimbabwe, which drove more than 100,000 black workers from their homes. Bob Diamond himself is responsible for tax scams and resigned from Barclays after his involvement in the Libor scandal. colby benefits from corporate giants. Use the education you get here to work against that.
Students begin campus devision of Students Organized Against Racism (SOAR) and soon has over 100 members.
1992
a history of 1994
A group of students of color, in coalition with a group of queer students, organized a silent protest against institutional racism and heterosexism at Colby during the spring Board of Trustees meeting. Calling themselves the “Coalition for Institutional Accountability” (CIA).
The Posse Program begins at Colby.
2003
2002 Uzoma Orchingwa ’14 premieres his new film, “Black on the Hill,” which documents the experience of students of color at Colby.
2012
Students of Color United for Change demand multicultural housing and better treatment for students of color on campus.
Students protest lack of student representation in the administration during trustees meetings in Roberts Union.
A team of students premiere the film “Bicentennial,” which explores race, social class, and learning differences at Colby.
2008
After an insensitive Cinco de Mayo party invite on Facebook and a Hawaiian Lu’au theme party. Students, faculty, and staff occupy the Pulver Pavilion to protest racial insensitivity at Colby.
Students affiliated with “Reclaim Colby.” unexpectedly step up to the microphone in Lorimer Chapel following President William “Bro” Adams’ Bicentennial Address on February 27th.
2013
A student physically harassed in a homophobic encounter in the Alfond Apartments, alleged rape goes unpunished, and three students of color are assaulted on an off-campus party bus - all leading to an unprecedented number of students and faculty taking to the civil discourse to voice their opinions on the chain “Beware What You Practice…”
Colby students hold a Students hold a “Colby Stands Against Hate” Demonstration
2016 A student demands more accountable language from SGA concerning offensive Halloween costumes and cultural appropriation.
2018
Students and faculty hold a sit-in organized by SOBLU in the Spa as a response to “Akon Day” incident, in which white students dressed up as convicts and wrote “Africa” on their bodies.
Students circulate a petition demanding the Administration to make amendments to the student handbook that detail disciplinary action taken againt bias incidents. The petition gained over 900 signatures.
activism
With demands aimed at fighting institutional racism, Colby students stage a sit-in at President Cotter’s office.
A series of anti-Semitic crimes sparks a Pugh Center Opens large rally against hate crimes on campus. as a result of the 1994 protest by Students of Color United for Change.
1997
1999
Two male students of color are assaulted by Security in the Pugh Center. The incident sparks a week of protest, dialogue, and an official investigation.
Push for a gender, sexuality resource center. Mules Against Violence (MAV) is established by students to raise awareness and promote conversation about sexual violence and masculinity at Colby.
2009
2011
Students at Colby formed the collective called United for Better Dining Services, which aimed to “oppose structural violence and demand justice with the Sodexo workers.”
2014
First SOBHU, now called SOBLU, organized die-in takes place Pulver in October, in response to police brutality throughout the country
“Hate is Not a Colby Value” protests in Spring of 2011 – in response to homophobic vandalism.
Students and faculty come together in response to a number of racist posts on Yik Yak concerning a Black Lives Matter protest.
2015
Students organize Melanin March in April
2017
Maine March for Racial Justice takes place in October, organized by Colby students
Student posts on Civil Discourse about their experience being recruited by an underground frat, EA, which implicated the then president of SGA, adding to the pressure to impeach him.
2019
Students hold a “Colby Enough” Walk Out in March
2018
All five students of color drop out of a poetry class in response to racism in the classroom in Spring.
Student4Change create an online portal to solicit information about the underground frats, and later release a zine with the details. Student posts on Civil Disourse accusing a member of SGA for engaging in sexual misconduct. That member resigns.
bonje obua
A Guide to Being
1
Every once in awhile, people are going to think you got into the school for your skin color.
Know you got into this school because you are capable. Imposter syndrome can be a real hurdle. I know I felt it, even though I came into Colby at 18 with a high school GPA of 4.0, two associates’ degrees earned with honors, as president of my school’s student council, and an athlete with over 100 hours of volunteering. You will encounter racism and have to deal with things that your other classmates will not notice, but know that you can make it through this. You deserve your spot.
2
People are going to confuse you with every other black girl/boy in your year.
If they can tell the difference between the infinite Katies, they can tell you from that other black girl that’s half a foot shorter.
You don’t need to be nice about it, and you don’t need to be patient.
3
People will assume they know more than you.
This is my least favorite part of labs. More often than not, your partner will assume that they understand the material more than you. I once had a partner tell me that my part of the lab should be printing out the graphs and cutting them out for the notebooks because he “thought I’d be good at that.” I’m not sure what that means, but I do know that every calculation he made was wrong.
4
Upperclassmen can be a treasure trove of information and support.
No one is exempt from bias or prejudice. I have found that upperclassmen have been able to expose new perspectives to me that have changed the way I view topics such as race, gender, and sexual orientation. Your professors aren’t the only ones who will provide you with an education (but always interrogate the ideas presented to you.)
Black at Colby
5 6
Science classes will be sparse
As a science major, I can say that even in the big lecture halls, people of color representation is sparse, but that should never deter you from a pursuit of knowledge!
You WILL be asked to speak for the whole African Diaspora (which is impossible to do.)
You can try, but it’s not your job.
7
The diversity and complexity of your blackness will get erased.
8
For black women: you may be seen as less romantically desirable than your non-black counterparts.
9
People will say/do bias things and refuse to acknowledge it.
Mixed people will be considered black. The complex histories of the plethora of countries and experiences of blackness will be condensed into one universal false identity.
This is bull-shit and racist.
Shockingly, it’s not cool to be racist anymore, and people will resist admitting to their biased actions or words. Don’t doubt yourself. Know that the feelings you have are valid and if you feel offended, it was probably offensive.
“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive”
-Audre Lorde
carter wynne
hamartia Last fall, I was sitting in my Asian American Studies class when my phone buzzed. One of my classmates was presenting on research she’d been conducting throughout the semester, so I didn’t dare look down at my screen. I tapped my pen against the table, as my classmate progressed through her slides. My phone buzzed again. This time, I checked the screen to make sure it wasn’t something urgent. My eyes glaze over and my heart drops, as I come to terms with the words I’m reading on the screen. There are two texts - one from my mom and one from my friend Grace. My mom’s text reads “a boy from your high school was shot.” Grace’s text reads “Tom is dead.”
I tell this story to give an example of what not to do. How not to react when you face pain.
I look around the room and I feel a lump starting to form in my throat. I pack up my things as quickly as I can and speed-walk to my car. I can feel the tears forming as I pull my hoodie over my head. I pass an acquaintance in the spa. They offer a quick “hey”, slowing their pace to indicate their intention to pause for a quick chat. I brush past them. I don’t have the energy to code-switch today.
When I get to my car, I turn on the heat and lock the doors. Putting my head against the wheel, I begin to cry. Tom was 22 years old when he died. He was driving home from work when he was fatally shot. In my country, people get shot everyday. Before Tom was shot, one of my little sister’s classmates Jamahri was shot before starting her freshman year at college. Before Jamahri was shot, my grandfather was shot twice. I pull out my phone and email my professors. I call my internship boss and let her know why I can’t come in. I drive to my apartment. I cry for Tom. After a few hours, I wipe the tears off my face and drive to the grocery store to pick up Tessa’s cake. Today is Tessa’s birthday and I’m in charge of the party. That evening, I feel like a shell of myself, while I watch my friends drink, celebrate, and sing happy birthday. Afterwards, I go back to my room alone. I choose to keep the pain to myself and I don’t tell anyone. On this day, a friend was born. On this day, a friend was murdered. I don’t tell this story to receive pity and I don’t tell this story to depress anyone. I tell this story to give an example of what not to do. How not to react when you face pain. How not to isolate yourself. I can promise you that there will be times at Colby when you will feel like the carpet has been pulled out from under you. You will feel like screaming and punching a wall. Don’t suffer alone. That only makes it worse. Look to the ones closest to you and lean on them. Let them help you. Better yet, ask for help. If you think ignoring a problem will make it go away, you’re wrong. I’ve made that mistake at Colby more times than I care to admit, but I’m learning. It’s my hamartia. Don’t let it be yours.
juan luna
i hate Colby Dear Colby Students, I hate Colby. Yup, I said it. I hate the ivory tower that has opened up many doors for me and allowed me to see and travel parts of the world I would have never dreamed of. I hate Colby, and that is okay. I think a lot of the time WE (students of color, LGBTIQ+ students, low-income students) are fed this weird narrative of what college will be like. We come in as first-years with so many expectations and hopes for what our college experience will be, and, to be frank, many of those expectations will not be met. I wasn’t prepared for the classism, racism, or whiteness that came with Colby. In my first semester here I had written in a journal “Colby is toxic” about five times, I lost 15 pounds, and I was pretty sure I forgot what proper seasoning (other than excessive amounts of cumin) on food tasted like. Colby College lacks the proper distribution of resources to keep Students of color and LGBTIQ+ students on this campus. Watch how many Students of color or LGBTIQ+ students either drop out, or take a semester or year(s) off if you don’t believe me. This campus is not easy to exist in as someone like me. I decided to take a year abroad as a way to escape this school. The classists will call me ungrateful. The racists will tell me to leave. And the Homophobes will just call me a F*g. The truth is, I’m at Colby because I still need an education. I am still trying to break out of the cyclical nature of poverty my family is trapped in. I have been given the opportunity to roam this campus with students who don’t give a fuck about me (or people like me) but I am gonna use this time to take EVERYTHING I can from this institution. And if you decide to stay- like I did- then I advise you do the same. Love yourself. Basically, what I want y’all to know is that its okay not to love this school or this place. We all gotta make it in this world, and you DO NOT have to be grateful to an institution that isn’t well-equipped to see you thrive. I have made the most amazing friendships at Colby.
I have been given many opportunities that would not have been presented to me had I not been a Colby student. None of this means I cannot be critical of Colby as an institution of higher education. None of this means Colby is a place where students of Color and LGBTIQ+ students can excel. It is okay if you hate Colby. I hate Colby. Sincerely, Juan Luna (They/Them/Theirs)
cat ledue
“we take care
Excerpt from Cat Ledue’s Thesis, “We Take Care of Our Own”: Stories from the South End I once arrived at the South End Teen Center soaked from a winter rainstorm. My umbrella had taken a harsh beating from the wind. As I would find out in embarrassment later, I had mascara running down my face. The SETC coordinator was surprised to see me. Showing concern, he asked, “Is it safe [to walk in this weather]?” Before I could answer, the teen specialist interjected, “No!” She told me we needed to exchange phone numbers so that she could start giving me rides. According to her, it was no trouble because, “here, we take care of our own.” That statement was probably the first thing I jotted down in my fieldnotes after departing. She said it with such conviction. My time at SETC has exposed me to a number of ways that the South End Teen Center (SETC) and the South End Neighborhood “take care of their own.” Whereas poor people are often imagined as in need of care, South End kids challenge such simplistic understandings of low-income communities. They, along with their families and SETC staff, engage in care work as they negotiate their circumstances and make meaning in their lives. My central argument is the conventional depiction of the poor as “impoverished,” in “survival mode,” and stuck in a “poverty mindset” is, at best, only a fraction of the story. Focusing on low-income people exclusively as victims of structural inequality, for example, elides the ways such individuals exercise agency and pursue lives of pleasure and meaning. At the South End Teen Center, teens, along with staff, co-construct an atmosphere of caring – an atmosphere saturated with humor, play, complex conversations, and acts of solidarity. The kids critique, negotiate, and resist dominant ideologies – challenging hegemonic depictions of the poor with both their voices and actions. In mainstream discourses, these insights about the South End are often overlooked. Colby College’s relationship with the neighborhood is constrained by the idea that local people need help to restore an economically and culturally robust past. In 2015, the Colby Echo published an article entitled “Waterville’s South End Gets a Makeover.” The piece outlines how the community “boasts a vibrant past” and is “working towards a bright future” (DiNicola 2015). After the Lockwood Company established a cotton mill in Waterville in 1873, new ethnic communities migrated to the area – most notably, Franco-Americans and Canadian farmers – to find work. As of 1900, Lockwood was providing some 1,300 jobs to the city. According to the article, the South End “emerged as a cultural hub with scores of business, a bilingual parochial school and a theater;” at that time, the neighborhood was referred to as the “Plains” (DiNicola 2015). To quote Jackie Dupont, a Colby alum and leading member of the South End Neighborhood Association, the South End was once “a proud, working-class neighborhood;” since then, “…the neighborhood has fallen into disrepair and a stereotype and stigma have overshadowed a rich and vibrant community…” (DiNicola 2015). While Dupont’s goal is to “change… the narrative” and foster grassroots leadership (DiNicola 2015), the article’s rhetoric sends an insidious message: the South End, in its current state, reflects loss and decay. Accordingly, its history is supposedly its most valuable asset. In 2017, the portrayal of the South End as dirty and downtrodden was vivid when Colby swooped in for a (partial) day of trash pickup. Costs were completely covered by the college; and, Colby faculty and students volunteered to provide a labor force (Harlow 2017). “Life at Colby” webpage published a piece called, “Colby Community Joins South End Residents for a Monumental Cleanup.” Emphasizing, just how “monumental” the cleanup was, the author writes: “Working together, in under three hours, volunteers filled six 30-yard dumpsters with old furniture, toys, and garbage” (Baker 2017). The Morning Sentinel echoed this point reporting (in “Colby volunteers, others haul discarded items away from Waterville’s South End) that there was a “massive cleanup of Waterville’s gritty South End neighborhood” (Harlow 2017). On the Colby Merit Pages (2017), the phrase “gritty South End neighborhood” appears yet again.
of our own” In addition to portraying the South End as a dump, the articles relay another message: cleaning up was Colby’s way of building a meaningful relationship with the South End. Dean of Students, Igne-Lise Ameer, is quoted, explaining her hope that the project “will lead to a student group getting really involved in the South End” (Baker 2017). The Morning Sentinel echoed this point: “The rubbish collection, financed by Colby College, was intended to help the neighborhood and get students more involved with the community in which they go to school.” Students interviewed emphasized the importance of “popping’ the “Colby Bubble” (Harlow 2017). Although the South End Neighborhood Association was involved in the project, other local inhabitants were simply informed that the cleanup was going to happen. As a leading association leader explained,” …We knocked on doors to tell people what was happening at no cost to them. Colby has donated the cost of everything” (Harlow 2017). The discourse that constructs Colby College as a benevolent investor in the city resonates with the college’s current project to “revitalize” Waterville. Downtown apartments have been built to house faculty and students outside of the ‘Colby Bubble;’ a hotel as well as an “arts and innovation center” are in the making; ‘highend’ restaurants have been brought to the area; and, the administration has heightened its focus on civic engagement and building community partnerships (Colby College 2019a; 2018; Calder 2017). Living in the new apartments has provided me with ample opportunities to hear how members of the Colby community talk about local people. Security has repeatedly reminded us to lock our cars to prevent theft. I have heard of young women who believe they are in greater danger downtown than on campus. At downtown community meetings, the idea that revitalization will “benefit everyone” in the end is used to portray local contestation and mistrust of Colby as irrational. The vice president of planning once explained away and belittled parking disputes by saying, “Mainers don’t like change.” In my civic engagement meetings with fellow residents, we have often talked of Waterville as a “nostalgic” place – full of people who want to return to some imagined past. Some of my peers have claimed they have the skills and ideas to make Waterville “better.” Instances in which locals have “harassed” Colby students have been dismissed as acts of irrationality and/or jealousy. While none of these claims are ill-intentioned or completely unfounded, they shore up the sentiment that Waterville lacks complexity, imagination, and legitimate values of its own. The Colby discourse also disguises the college’s role in (re)producing class inequalities. For example, according to Rhea Côte Robbins’ memoir (1997), which describes her experience growing up on the South End’s Water St. in the 1960s, the College has historically provided jobs to South End residents as staff (1997: 4950). This trend seems to have persisted; during my fieldwork, I heard of SETC kids whose parents currently work at Colby. Therefore, the economic status of certain South End residents is directly shaped by the pay standards Colby adheres to. Considering my old dorm’s janitor worked two jobs to support himself, I am doubtful that the college provides livable wages to all its staff members. Likewise, it remains unclear how “revitalization” will impact the price of housing in the city. Yet, in discussions of revitalization, Colby gets to be the hero of the story while Waterville is backward and nostalgic. The concrete, material repercussions of the college’s actions are swept under the rug. And, the discontent of locals is a result of their (mis)understanding of what is happening. Dissenters, apparently, do not know what is “good” for them. To be clear, my thesis is not about Colby. It is about the South End Teen Center and what I learned from the people I met there. It is about their systems of care, their seemingly endless supply of jokes, their creativity, their negotiations, and their theorizations. By focusing on life on the South End, I am attempting to send a message that I think is relevant to the Colby administration: poor people do not need benevolent “help.” They are very capable of making meaning in their lives and taking care of their communities. Rather than making assumptions about what will make places like the South End “better,” those who want to “help” should be thinking about what it would take to address the system that allows for an institution to have millions upon millions of dollars in a town where many people live paycheck to paycheck.
garima dahiya
colby is not
When my friend approached me to write this article, they said “you could write about why you took time off, or your time abroad; your experience matters.” I laughed— “you want me to write about how the best part about Colby was being away from it?”. As I write this, I am 10 days away from returning to Colby as a rising senior; after a two year hiatus. I took time off, a year, for my mental and physical health after my sophomore year. For the year after, I went abroad to the UK to study at University College London. I am still thinking- How much would have Colby changed? You will soon realise that Colby’s predominant demographic comes from 20 min outside BostonWhite/wealthy/suburban or all of the above. I’m sure suburban Boston is perfectly lovely, and if you are reading this as someone from the above demographic, this article is not a cheap jab at you. But for some of us, many of us, who do not come from this world, we can feel terribly isolated at a place like Colby; four years of what we hoped would be some of the most meaningful and cherished years of our life.
Whining about rich, White kids at Colby then, was certainly one of my favourite past times; but soon enough I realised, wasn’t very productive for me. There are ways to address issues of privilege on this campus— in discussions in your classes, getting involved in the Pugh centre, through art in the museum or in the theatre, talking to your advisors or deans. As minority, ‘diverse’, students, this is important for us— to declare our grievances, to take up space that wasn’t created for us, and now only painfully tries to accommodate us. At the same time, the weight of identity politics on this campus is not ours to constantly hold.
As non-white/non-cis-male/queer/financially stressed; us surviving and thriving is itself revolutionary. Take care of yourself and your friends. For allies and those with privilege, look out for your peers in kindness, be careful of the space you take. Do some of the work of addressing privilege on this campus that we might get so tired of doing. On how to do this, I hope you find time for conversations throughout the year.
your whole life But of course, our college experience need not be entirely burdened by identity politics. I want to talk about how my time away from Colby was important and cherished, but not as a bitter critique of Colby itself.
Identity politics aside, I did not give myself to Colby enough, I never let it become home enough. I always complained of the cold and I was very ill for most of my time here. In my two years away from Colby, first at home in India and then at study abroad in London, I realised a few things— First, I was terribly homesick and was scared that I was missing out on important politics/people/work at home. Along with my health, my year off put all those anxieties to rest. Secondly, London made me realise that I need to be at a large university in a big city. I thrived there, to say the least, in the anonymity and the chaos of the concrete jungle. What I am trying to conclude is, that intense academic semesters, back to back on a small campus in the middle of (a rather beautiful) nowhere, take away the perspective that Colby is not, and will not be out entire lives.
Being on this campus with its academic and institutional resources is a massive privilege, no matter where you come from. But no place can offer everything, and for what Colby lacks on it campus, it tries to make up by things like enabling time off, or with a variety of options for study abroad. If you feel like Colby wasn’t the right fit for you, reach to people who might help you make choices to fulfill more of what you need. And in the mean time, try to engage, as much as you are able, with what this campus does have to offer; I’ll be there this year, for the last time, trying too.
anne vetter
hookup culture
excerpted from thesis
It’s not even that whiteness makes you more attractive, or allows you more social capital or that it allows you to hook yourself into different social webs. Being white means you don’t experience racial violence. Being white means you can interact with whiteness as “amorphous and indescribable” (Frankenberg 1993: 82). Being white means you can live an unexamined life in a white supremacist system. I’ve already said it again, and again; the less you can feel in this system of hookup culture, the easier it is for you to move through. Being white in hookup culture at Colby means that you experience embodied violence less so you don’t need to speak up as much. It’s a white blindness. To be successful as a POC in hookup culture, you have to assimilate into that blindness. But, no, it’s not a becoming blind, it’s a staying quiet. Much of what I see and have seen for this research is because of the intentional choice to look, not because it is something that I have experienced in my body. There are spaces on this campus and in this community that I could access easily because of my whiteness and wealth, and others that I could not access really, at all. In so many ways, Colby is a segregated campus. There are kinds of violence, namely those rooted in racism and classism, that I will never experience. And, even if I see or hear about them, I will still process the violence through the lens of my own experience, through a white, wealthy body. In many cases, I will be on the other side of that violence, a part of a community that allows this violence to occur. And, in that moment, my return to depression makes more sense. Doing ethnographic work of my own everyday life has been a mind-splitting experience. The way I see rooms around me, my own body, my own actions and words and thoughts, has shifted. It’s like suddenly, there are a million little strings coming from everything, connecting to everything. I recognize that the series of questions I have been forced to ask of myself and the spaces around me are questions that some others already have to ask. Maybe the clearest way to say this is that I started asking questions that I never had to ask because I am white, because I am wealthy. It’s been a bursting open of my subjectivity, a shift in how I understand myselfand my impact. I think, really, at the root of this depression is a waking up to the world that I have always lived in. A world that I have been blind to in many ways. A violence that I have been complicit in without feeling. I won’t lie. I am ashamed. I feel guilt. Neither are productive emotions when left alone but they can be catalysts. This whole year, I have been trying to make sense of how the ritualized nature of hookup culture obscures the social processes and larger systems that inform students’ desires and in so many ways, I have failed in my ability to see beyond myself, beyond my whiteness. Again, I won’t lie. For almost half of this year, I thought I was the one being wronged. And, in many ways, I am. I have experienced violence, violence that straight white women on this campus will never feel. At the beginning, I think I was asking questions about pleasure because the sex I was having in hookup culture made me feel unseen, unimportant. It was a dulling ofconnection. To use Jensen’s terms, I wanted to feel fully human. I thought I could do that by embedding myself more in the system, by fucking more socially powerful men, by becoming more attractive, by beating the system. Yet, Jensen argues “to be fully human is to reject a system that conditions your pleasure on someone else’s pain” (Jensen 2005: xx). Literally, my pleasure, my sexual pleasure is contingent on a system that further perpetuates white supremacy.
and sexual subjectivity To pull it all together, in a lot of ways, this thesis is a call to white women, especially white straight women. While I do not identify as straight or as a cis-gender woman, I still loop myself into this category of white woman because of the way that my body is perceived on campus. I’ve spent all year shifting through their stories, our stories and I have seen experiences of violence, often terrible violence. Yet, there is also extreme silence. There is a fear to speak up for ourselves and for others. Look, I’m not trying to argue that the blame for all of the violence that is a result of hookup culture falls on white women. No. This is a system, we are merely a part ofit. However, we can and have to do better. We are centering our own narratives, not questioning beyond our own embodied experiences. There is an imperative to think beyond the self, to understand our own culpability. There’s something I hear all of the time from other white women that usually goes something like George is kind ofracist (or involved in an organization that puts Xanax in the punch or may have sexually assaulted someone or isn’t nice) but there are so few men to fuck, so I’m gonna fuck him anyways. I say it too. We think that by sleeping with men who do violent things, we are only hurting ourselves. This isn’t true. All of our actions within this system have a larger impact. Foucault writes, “where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (Foucault 1975: 95). To resist, push back, disrupt the system, we shift where power sits, we shift even our culpability in violence.
This is not a call for some kind of white savior action, but a call to reflect. What am I not seeing? What do I not see because of my body? For me, this all comes back to what my professor said to me, this fall: You students think it’s about you, but it’s not about you. Or, it is about you and it’s also about something bigger than you. In finishing this work, I come back to the night last April that sparked this whole process. That night where I sat, waiting without understanding why I didn’t leave. What would it have done for me to have pushed back? To have left that night? In terms of my life, very little. I maybe would have felt proud, probably still hurt. But, realistically, very little. However, small transgressions are still transgressions. It would have, maybe even a little, destabilized the system, opened space for more destabilization. I’m not saying this man in himself was an overt racist, classist person, but what I am saying is that the same system that made it normal for him to treat me as he did had tendrils in, was a part of, a larger violence.
olivia balcos
Recipe for Belonging Everytime I come back home from break, I tell my mom all the foods that I want her to cook -adobo, seafood, lumpia, pancit, sinigang. I want to eat pompano, whole, non-filleted so that none of the fish is wasted. I want the sinigang, with tamarind, ginger, tomatoes, and lemongrass in the broth to give it a sharp kick. I want all the Filipino food, and I eat heartily, knowing that I won’t have access to those foods at Colby. Even now as I write this article, I’m emotionally preparing myself for the lack of seafood, the lack of spices, the lack of tropical fruit, and the lack of authentic Asian food at Colby. Food is just one of the daily reminders of how I don’t belong at Colby. Dining etiquette at catered dinners makes me miss eating at my family parties, where everyone is free to eat with their hands and be intimate with the food and each other. When I am sitting in a class of white-majority students, I can already assume that most people their don’t understand what it means to be a FilipinoAmerican from a low-income urban city, and the burden falls on me to educate everyone. I wonder if I’m supposed to belong at all. I think back to the history of this college. Colby College was built in the early 1800s in Waterville, Maine. It has, since its founding, focused on providing education to rich, white men from Massachusetts, and then in 1873, opened its doors to providing education to rich, white women. At Colby’s core, from the decision to build the college on a hill away from the townspeople who were not of the same elite class, from its function to serve mainly rich, white students not local to Waterville, to the destruction of the land to cut down trees and make way for an obnoxious amount of lawn-cut grass, to the fact that most of the native Watervillians at Colby College are not of the administration or the student body, but the workers, the dining hall staff and PPD -- are deeply rooted issues of classism and racism. I think about the measures I would have to take in order to “fit in” at Colby. I would have to buy a two thousand dollar Canada Goose coat. I would have to play a sport or be interested in sports. I would have to learn racism enough to be able to write about it in an essay but not actually be able to apply it to my daily life. I would turn a blind eye to how Wall Street colonizes the Global South and dream of working at JP Morgan. Or, I could have a conscience. I can care about how queer, POC, disabled, low-income, international folks lack support and join students organizations that are giving that support. I can push my peers to think deeper about racism, classism, and imperialism and to imagine a life that is better for them than what Colby has to offer.
I can be true to my Filipino ancestors, by continuing to disrupt white etiquette by laughing l o u d l y, e x p r e s s i n g t h e f u l l e x t e n t o f w h a t m a k e s m e a n g r y, a n d n o t c o m p r o m i s i n g m y F i l i p i n o i d e n t i t y t o a s s i m i l a t e t o t h e w h i t e m a j o r i t y.
kris de luna
An Open Love Letter An Open Love Letter to my fellow Queer and Trans students of color Hello my lovelies, So you’ve decided to come to Colby. First of all, I’d like to say congratulations in the most sincere way. You’ve broken down walls and have combated institutions that weren’t to hold people like you and I. And you’ve landed here, at Colby College. However, as a queer student of color, there’s much more to surviving Colby than just showing up and going to classes. Those institutions that you’ve overcome so far still exist and at Colby, it’s like they’re on steroids. The reality is that this school doesn’t provide enough resources for its students, specifically POC, and specifically queer and trans POC. They bring in innovative and hopeful students like you, who have amazing potential, but then fail to follow through to ensure your safety and well-being. There’s something wrong with an institution when you have individuals from the administration advocating for a new cobblestone pathway in front of Marylow, but there never seems to be enough funds for access to basic necessities like clean drinking water in East and West. I can keep ranting about Colby forever, but I wanted to take this time and space to acknowledge your presence and let you know that community IS out there, it exists somewhere in this frozen, white wonderland that you’ve entered. You’ll find it in the randomest of places, you’ll find it in professors, and you’ll find it in your friends. When you see it, make sure that you hold on it and foster it. During the times that you feel small and invisible, know that others have come before you and are rooting for your success; I know I am. You deserve to be here, just as much as everyone else. Your spirit knows no bounds so never let anyone stifle your flame. Make sure to take up space, laugh the kind of laugh that takes your breath away, and never shy away from yourself. Even though this institution doesn’t hold a space for you, carve your name on that shiny, new cobblestone pathway. The question that we ask ourselves coming in is, can we have it all? Can we survive those unforgivably homophobic winters, sashay up Miller Steps in 6-inch stilettos, while fanning ourselves with a $280,000 degree… AND still have perfect hair? Yes, we can. I’m about to, and I never thought that I would. Let’s paint this Ivory tower because who the fuck said white was a primary color? With much love, Ya girl Kris <3 I wrote this piece for the Black and Brown femmes before me who have paved the way for me to be here, to the ones that currently hold me up, and to the ones who will eventually be in my place. I see you.
kabir singh
a very relevant story To be clear, this is an experience I went through mostly alone, and the details I know are stuck in the time of my short exposure to EA (in the very beginning of November 2017, my sophomore fall). In the last few days of October 2017, a friend of mine who I trusted, began to let me know about a group on campus dedicated to ‘changing Colby for the better.’ He thought I would be a good addition to this group. He told me the group was secret and he couldn’t tell me much more about it; I just had to go to a meeting. Stupid me, I should have put the pieces together then. I asked why it was a secret. My friend said that the group believed it was beneficial to be able to take a step back from commotions on campus to focus on robust solutions for our entire campus community. I was intrigued by this group, although quite suspicious. I thought it would be something involving folding chairs in a low-key room on campus. As directed by my friend, I followed the directions of a text I got from an unknown number to be behind Diamond at 10pm (maybe 9, maybe 8, sometime at night). I was picked up by someone I knew and was taken on a long drive (asked to reflect on my Colby experience in the back seat in silence), with a unnerving stop for about 10 minutes at a parking lot somewhere to the west of campus. I was the only one besides my peer ‘driver’ in the car. The drive ended on a dirt driveway in a heavily forested area, I didn’t know where I was, and at that point I was getting kind of scared. After the person who got me into this came to my car seat and warned me that I was going to be blindfolded, I was blindfolded and led down the dirt driveway into a cabin. On the way, I only heard the voices of what I perceived to be cis-men, which I was right about. During that walk, I realized that I had made a grave mistake. Once in the cabin, I was sat down on a couch. There was someone also sitting next to me. We were (the people on the couch) addressed as “Gentlemen,” and we were told to take our blindfolds off and stare into the fire that was in front of us. By the fireplace was a man sitting on a chair with his back turned to us. This man (who was a well known campus ‘leader’ in the class of 2018) continued to give a dramatic and ominous speech about how we were “the light” that was carrying this campus forward, a group of gentlemen dedicated to bettering their community (something along those lines). It was so pathetic, I almost burst out laughing, but I was also pretty scared of whatever was going on. We were told that, if we accepted this offer to be a part of “Erosophian Adelphi” (EA for short), we should light the candle that was placed in our hands earlier with the fireplace fire. Although we were offered an out with no questions, I was too scared to make a scene, so I lit my candle with my fellow recruitees, telling myself that I would get out of whatever this was as soon as I got back to campus. Once we lit the light that we supposedly were, a group of men (probably around 15 of them) who were standing behind the couch we were seated on the entire time, revealed themselves by beginning to clap and cheer. They introduced themselves as the men of “Erosophian Adelphi.” We were meant to mingle and meet our fellow ‘gentlemen.’ There was cheese, champagne, orange juice, and maybe crackers. Usually I am the one to inhale any food at a social event, but this time I didn’t eat that much. Maybe like one slice of cheese. As I looked around nervously while all the men mingled, I realized I was in the COC cabin. I was informed by my new frat members that there would be a retreat in two weeks time at which alumni of EA would also be present. We were told to begin making up lies to tell our friends about where we would be going that weekend. I was also introduced to the really meaningful custom of introducing fellow EA men in public by saying, “this is ___, he’s a really great guy!” The event eventually wrapped up, and we were driven back to campus (to my utter relief). Over the next week, I spoke respectfully with the person who got me into this about why I didn’t want to be a part of it. He continued to try and convince me, asking me to think about it more, and give it a little time. He reasoned with the benefits of having a great alumni network for jobs, having a safe space to unpack healthy masculinity, and just having a group of “really great guys.” Each group member was also meant to take on a project each semester dedicated to changing campus/the community for the “better.” During this week, I was sent the information for a secret email address I would hold to communicate all things EA (I never logged on). After about a week I think, this person finally gave up, and swore me to secrecy on the existence of Erosophian Adelphi. I haven’t had any exposure since, so I don’t know anything about the current state of the group. I stayed silent for a long time out of an unconfirmed fear that if I were to say something, the members of EA would do something to me. I think they are pathetic, but many of the people I saw in that room or found out were a part of it held positions of power on campus. I apologize that I did stay silent, I’m done with that now. This group of toxic men thought they were the saviors of this campus. They have the privilege to remove themselves from the issues of campus into a literal frat, in which they believe they can forge healthy masculinity safe from those who challenge them. In which they completely disregard the hard work that so many members of campus are already doing so that they can congratulate themselves and build even more toxic egos that are dangerously present in structures of power on campus. In which they refuse to see themselves as part of the problem and continue to elevate themselves. They are pathetic but they hold power that they shouldn’t. (a Civil discourse post from Feb. 2019)
civil discourse Civil Discourse is an important resource for the members of the Colby community to discuss and respond to events that are happening on campus. Students recount instances of bias, racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism.
The platform therefore becomes a way to hold the community responsible for acts committed by certain members and provides a platform that many marginalized members of our community can use to voice their experiences and opinions. There is a rich history of Colby students and faculty using this platform to speak out and incite change.
At the moment, you can find the civil discourse on the bottom of the Colby Now emails, and also online:
http://www.colby.edu/now/civil-discourse/ for a detailed history of activism and student-made student records, also check out:
http://web.colby.edu/activism/
good luck