A quick look at the constitution of La Casa brings up several key points that I believe the editorial staff of The Student failed to note in their editorial. Taking directly from the section of the constitution that states the purpose of the theme house:
“La Casa was founded with the strong belief that such awareness and celebration is not confined solely within the boundaries of Amherst College. With this in mind, it requires that its participants organize community projects both on and off campus. Individuals are responsible for fulfilling a community service requirement. The House must also do at least one community service outreach project per semester as a group. Community service is seen as an integral part of the goals of the house.”
What most people fail to realize about La Casa is that its goals aimed at cultural awareness and promotion are not aimed solely at its residents, but also the entire Amherst College community and Amherst community at whole. Last semester, I, along with several other residents of the house, went on the ABC Fall Foliage Walk, which supported the ABC tutoring program. This is one of the ways in which the community service requirement can be filled and as ABC is a group that tutors primarily minorities, this gives directly back to the Amherst Latino community.
The editorial continues to slander the usefulness of theme houses by stating that “ethnically based theme houses provide no independent benefit to the campus’s cultural diversity. They fulfill no function on behalf of affinity group programming that cannot be performed by the B.S.U., La Causa or the A.S.A.” While I am inclined to agree that there is probably no project that the members of La Casa could come up with that La Causa could not possibly do, to say that that is a reason theme houses should be eliminated seems unreasonable. Why rely so heavily on one group to provide the entire Latino programming for the entire campus? The Student sorely misunderstands La Casa’s purpose and usefulness.
Stephen Stewart ’09
You wrote, in your editorial, “Theme Housing Fortifies Latent Divisions,” that the College “cannot expect to stop self-segregation, which often manifests itself in housing decisions. However, we believe the College should abandon those of its practices that promote further self-segregation within the student body and that advance division on campus. Institutions such as ethnically and racially based theme housing reinforce the de facto segregation of portions of campus life without providing cultural experiences for the larger community.”
Your editorial posits essentialist views about the students who choose to live in theme houses. Inherent in this statement that students are “self-segregating” is the belief that all African-Americans, Asians and Latinos experience the same culture within their respective groups. This is a claim that we must demystify. For example, there are Asians who live in the Asian Culture House, African Americans who live in Drew House and Latino(a)s who live in La Casa to learn their heritage because they were not raised within this culture. Being African-American, Asian-American or Latino-American (etc.) does not make you the poster child for the race.
American culture normalizes whiteness and thus “others” non-European racial groups in our “land of immigrants.” This normalization causes some Amherst students to deem racially similar individuals who choose to join theme houses as those who consciously choose to “self-segregate.” This “othering” of these groups, African-Americans, Asian-Americans (and even this is too broad because there are Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, etc.) and Latino-Americans, undermines the fact that they are Americans. These minority groups have hyphenated surnames. They occupy a unique perspective and position because they are simultaneously an “other” and an American by virtue of this hyphenation. We must consider the duality of these dynamics to understand the need for theme houses here at Amherst.
Furthermore, we must remember that society forces individuals to choose their racial identity. Check the box: African-American, Asian, White, Latino or “other.” When athletes, members of PRIDE, freshmen and other non-racial groups socialize together it is not labeled “self-segregation.” In fact, it is not labeled. Thus, there is a double standard when race is involved. Further, do you ask, “Why do the white people sit together?”
Before you presume that theme houses are “defunct” have you ever considered “How do I socialize with my individual group(s) of which I involve myself?” “Why do I socialize with my individual group(s) of which I involve myself?” I’m sure that you did not answer with a non-self segregationist mentality. Furthermore, you write that “theme housing reinforces the de facto segregation … without providing cultural experiences for the larger community.” This is false because each person who lives within a theme house must organize a house project, which serves to educate the greater community. Thus, the responsibility to attend house projects and learn about other cultures is now up to individual students. The elimination of theme housing would be one step down the slippery slope to homogeneousness, which Amherst proactively works against. Theme houses and in fact a Multicultural Center are ways to ensure cultural pluralism in the Amherst bubble.
On another note, your editorial states, “Obviously, Amherst cannot continue to recreate the diversity of the first year without violating the free will of its students.” Here you are suggesting assimilation, which would create a homogenous environment.
It is difficult for some majority members of the College to fully understand the importance of a theme house and a multicultural center because of their positioning within the dominant group. As Amherst students, when considering the symbol of our seal, Terras Irradient, and the imperative to “illumine the whole earth,” we must make room for the light of understanding, which burns as we have engage in this “cultural experiment” (as President Marx called the diversity initiatives during the “Be Heard” discussion on Feb. 12, 2008).
Latisha Wilson ’09
While we understand that your editorial section does not reflect the paper’s views, and we respect the right of the author of “Things That Make You Go Hmm” to voice her opinions, we would like for you to issue an apology about several inaccuracies in the article that tarnish our character. Teachers, peers and parents read The Student and we would not like their opinions of us skewed by lies.
First of all, we are not all basketball players. Our group consists of five basketball players (two of which also play golf), two baseball players and one swimmer. In our sketch, the female character does nothing to convey that she is “brainless.” At no time is she “groped or hand[ed] … to police officer characters to be fondled.” We have the tape, and nothing could even be contrived as groping or fondling, except for an innocent arm around the shoulder. We did not “plant” friends in the audience, we had two groups of friends in opposite balconies as part of our act, and the “basketball players” are not friends with one of the judges. In no way did we cheat or attempt to beat the system, we just did our performance. We have no special relationship with SHAC or the judges, so we find it hard to classify our win as “favoritism.”
Also, many people have come up to us telling us our performance was the best in the senior class, so it is a bit of an overstatement to say that Robot Wars was “undoubtedly the frontrunner for the prize in every audience member’s mind.” Again, we have no problem with the editorial section printing one student’s opinion; however, when that opinion refers to lies and generalizes for the entire campus, then we take offense.
Finally, it is hurtful to refer to one of our members as a “schmuck” and to call our entire performance “douchebaggery.” We are very upset that you would allow the printing of the aforementioned words in the school newspaper, no matter how strongly your writers or editors may feel about us or our skit. Instead of reacting strongly with an equally heated and hateful response, we just want the matter to die down, but not until you issue an apology for false and unnecessarily harsh and hurtful material.
Ben Kaplan ’09, Angus Schaller ’09,
Glenn Wong ’09, Chris Resler ’09,
Marcus Bradley ’09, Brian Baskauskas ’09, Michael Holsey ’09, Ryan Platzbecker ’09