7 May, 2015
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Olivia Buntaine to be grad senior speaker By Sydney Sibelius ‘18 Staff Writer
E
ach year, the Scripps senior class selects a fellow graduating student to speak at Commencement. The elected student is able to commemorate the past four years and the experiences had by the graduating class. This year, Olivia Buntaine ‘15 was selected to present her speech after being inspired by previous speakers. “I had had a couple of friends in the past few years who had been commencement speaker,” Buntaine said. “I had always thought of it as a possibility, and I didn’t even expect it to work it out. Like at all.” In creating her speech, Buntaine was compelled to provide a story that represents what happens behind the scenes of the beautiful Scripps campus. “People don’t make room for how hard things can be and how interesting some of those struggles are and the ways in which things aren’t perfect all of the time,” Buntaine said. “That’s kind of what makes it beautiful, and that’s what I really wanted to provide a narrative on. Something that would challenge that aspect of perfection and our messy struggle of trying to figure out who we are and what we want from the world. That is really what’s beautiful about Scripps.” In comparison to those of many
Olivia Buntaine’s speech was selected by her peers to be shared at the 2015 Scripps Graduation. Photo courtesy of Hannah Van Sciver.
other schools, the process to select a student speaker at Scripps is unique in that students are expected to submit their speech for their fellow classmates to read and then vote on. This is meant to ensure that the speech provides an accurate and truthful representation of the students. Buntaine, alongside her
classmates, was inspired by her past four years at Scripps. “It’s really interesting, because I think my speech talks about some of the harder stuff here, like doing sexual violence advocacy on campus, a little bit about Ferguson, a little bit about working for a trans admission policy, and some of
the harder aspects of my time at Scripps,” Buntaine said, describing events that took place during her four years on campus. “And I wanted to find a way to not just brush away the pain that people go through in college to make it seem like it was the best four years of our lives, but
Kimberlé Crenshaw Speaks at Scripps
towards blacks that has manifested in police brutality. “The anger and agony of these deaths [such as the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and others] has released a powerful discourse of resistance and a dynamic effort to name the particular dynamics of this form of anti-black racism,” Crenshaw said. “Specifically, an issue has been the ways in which anti-black stereotype narratives and social imperatives have been woven together in a manner that enables the continuing drumbeat of death within an ideological framework that renders these killings to be normal, acceptable and even defensible.” Crenshaw explained how the stereotypes and beliefs embodied in this anti-black racism lowers
police accountability in terms of their treatment of all bodies, not just those of African Americans. When police are able to behave in the manner in which they do towards African Americans, she explained, what is stopping them from behaving corruptly and unjustly towards people of all races? Crenshaw compares police violence in this way to the “way that the discourse surrounding welfare shredded the safety net for all poor women.” In other words, an unjust act is targeted at a specific group, it can easily spread to unlawful behavior towards a wider array of groups. She explained that this particular form of racism both targets the targeted groups themselves and
By Taylor Galla ‘18 Staff Writer
O
n April 28, Scripps College welcomed Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, to campus for a lunchtime discussion followed by a lecture later that evening in Garrison Theater. The purpose of both talks was to discuss intersectionality in the political and social discourse surrounding anti-black racism in the United States. The lecture in Garrison began with a brief introduction from Scripps College President Lori BettisonVarga and Wanawake Weusi president Shanisha Coram ‘17, who
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gave a more detailed background of who Crenshaw is and her work surrounding racial justice. “My talk tonight speaks to the current in which some widely contradictory impulses are playing out in the social arena,” Crenshaw said. “Most dramatically, this past year has witnessed the rising resistance to police violence and the apparent impunity with which individuals who are clothed with state power have been able to take lives without consequence.” She began by introducing the discourse that recent events surrounding police violence has sparked around racial issues in America-- specifically, the racism
Page 4 - Professor Huynh Meet visiting professor, artist Phung Huynh
Page 9 - Feminism & Film
Explore why tropes of female characters in film are problematic.
1030 Columbia Avenue | Claremont, CA 91711 | Box 839 email: scrippsvoice@gmail.com | Volume XVIII | Issue Eleven
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Page 11 - Last Looks
Get some last advice from the first-year timeline.