The Oberlin Review
NOVEMBER 22, 2013 VOLUME 142, NUMBER 10
Outside the Bubble News highlights from the past week Students in White Sheets Spotted on Kenyon’s Campus The Thrill, Kenyon College’s student newspaper, reported on Wednesday that two students draped in white sheets were seen walking across campus. According to the article, Kenyon Dean of Students Hank Toutain alerted the student body the following afternoon by email. The students were first spotted in the campus library, then confronted by campus security on Middle Path, the main walkway. “At least one student witness reported being upset by the incident. The response by Campus Safety is also being reviewed,” Dean Toutain wrote in the email. According to The Thrill, the college intends to initiate a campus-wide dialogue about social responsibility and “sensitivity to others.” Hawaiian Lawmaker Turns Vigilante Hawaiian state lawmaker Tom Brower was tired of his state’s influx of homeless persons, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. Hoping to drive a portion of the demographic from his home town of Waikiki, Brower combed the streets for abandoned shopping carts known to be used by the homeless, and spent his night destroying each and every one with a sledgehammer. Although later branded as a cruel vigilante, Brower saw his work as that of a public servant. Brower estimates he has destroyed a total of about 30 shopping carts. Sources: The New York Times and The Thrill
Solarity’s Next Generation Sheds Rave Image Kate Gill News Editor Solarity may be a nascent organization, but its reputation has grown considerably since Neon Garden, the inaugural event in 2011. And so too has its controversy on campus. Throughout its operation, Solarity has been dubbed “polarizing,” a trait that students can identify, but not necessarily explain. “It’s hard for me to say, because I think I’ve heard things through the rumor mill, and I’m not sure which ones are credible and which ones aren’t,” College fifthyear Arielle Lewis-Zvala said, who attended Neon Garden. And according to College senior and Solarity Co-Chair Jesse Goldberg, the controversy is largely unfounded. “At Oberlin,” Goldberg explained, “an image gets put on you. And that’s been one of the most frustrating things for me, this image that’s been superimposed onto us as to who we were, what we were doing, who we were targeting. All this came from outside of the group. We never really tried to have an image but one was developed —yeah, they’re a
bunch of white kids doing this rave thing. I’ve heard a lot of different things, there’s a lot of misinformation. Those negative images were put onto us.” According to College senior Dan Meltzer, head of Solarity’s marketing, the organization has
See page 4
resolved to change that very image. One initiative, Meltzer noted, is a recent collaboration with the Sexual Information Center. “A big criticism of Solarity is that people noticed a lot of nonconsensual sexual activity at the events,” Meltzer said.
“We took it upon ourselves to minimize that this year because we want it to be a safe space. We’ve been working with the SIC. Every Solarity member was peacekeeper trained, the [same] See College, page 4
Last semester’s Solarity event, Awaken the Wild, contained light shows, performances and other features that the College deemed characteristic of “rave-culture.” The administration specifically prohibited the use of lasers, blacklights, strobes, body paint, glow sticks or fruit slices. Dale Rothenberg
OSCA Mandates Members Attend Allyship Workshops Louis Krauss In an effort to facilitate more effective cross-community discussion, OSCA is requiring its members to attend this week’s Anti-Racism Workshops. Held on Nov. 23 and 24, the workshops will last approximately three hours and will address both the intricacies of racial insensitivity, as well as the implications of allyship. While OSCA bylaws have always allowed for this type of mandatory meeting to be proposed, this is the first case of implementation. OSCA President Katherine Pardue said that this was partly in response to last year’s racial hate incidents, and that she thought that OSCA could be more open and
helpful to students who have been offended by past insensitivity. “There was a call to action last spring, and up until then OSCA had been doing a lot of talk about how inclusive the organization was. It became clear that that was not entirely true, as members of our community spoke up about ways in which they did not feel OSCA was not always accessible to POCs and low-income folk in particular, including myself,” said Pardue in an email to the Review. “As a woman of color facilitating discussions about these trainings in Harkness last spring I was met with the alarming reality that many people did not know how to check their privilege, call-in others for saying harmful things
or navigate these discussions in a successful way.” According to Pardue, one of the reasons that these workshops are required solely for OSCA, rather than the entire student body, is that the co-ops have the power to implement their decisions sooner. “I hold OSCA to a different standard than I do Oberlin College, and felt that after the March 4 events I had not been doing all that I could to ensure the safety and accessibility of our spaces. OSCA has the ability to decide on things faster and implement them sooner than the College can. All of our decisions are made via the collective power of our membership, whether that is through the Board of
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Directors who directly represent the members or within individual co-ops,” said Pardue. Like OSCA, Student Senate members have also decided to hold these types of discussions. This decision was made on Oct. 7 when a proposal detailing the need for such a series of workshops was drafted by leading members of the association. Pardue said she believes that, although a single workshop won’t make the campus dramatically more accepting, it will have some effect. “The purpose of these workshops would not be to make everyone think the same way or force anyone to conform to a certain way of being ‘politically correct’
Dream Season Ends Mixed Media Masterpiece Exhibition Initiative and Soundfarm hosted an evening of musical and artistic improvisation. See page 11
INDEX:
Opinions 6
This Week in Oberlin 8
The men’s soccer team returns home spirited despite loss. See page 16
Arts 11
Sports 16
from the
but rather to establish a minimum expectation of critical thought by OSCA members in relation to privilege and accessibility,” she said. Although such a blanket initiative may prove to safeguard against insensitivity, some students have said that they view the proposal as an outlet for the heads of OSCA to alleviate their “white guilt.” College sophomore and former Harkness resident Bill Derrah said that most co-ops’ overall lack of diversity is what led to this decision. “During my time in OSCA, people complained [about] how racially homogenous it was — [those people] being white people. So I think See Co-ops, page 5
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