Tag: college

Talking ‘Bout My Generation

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In my post about The University of Missouri, I mentioned that I agree to some extent that my generation is overly sensitive or “too coddled,” as many are saying. I wrote then, and stand by my word, that this does not apply to what happened at Mizzou and what continues to happen with racial injustice across campuses and cities around the country. However, I do want to share my thoughts on when it does apply and why I think this is happening.

I guess my first point is the fine line between raging against a longstanding system and being too sensitive. The reason I don’t think Mizzou had to do with sensitivity is because racism has and continues to be a system on which our country operates. That is a fact. It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. When students say, “Hey I’m not going to be a pawn in this system anymore,” they are choosing to stop complying with the mechanics of this system and trying to make a change. When a student says, “This is offensive I don’t want to hear it,” they are being too sensitive. I mean this especially in the case of education. Like if a student says, “I’m not reading Huckleberry Finn because it uses the N-word,” I would say that’s being overly sensitive. That is inhibiting their own education because certain things were more acceptable in that time period. Do you see the difference?

People now are just looking for someone to blame. A lot of fingers are pointing at me and my generation for just being too sensitive and overly coddled. This is funny because last I checked we didn’t raise ourselves. Not to say that parents are to blame either. But we have to look at the timeline of my generation.

We are the participation trophy generation. Since I started t-ball at age 5, I was showed that if I showed up, I would get a trophy. Our coaches (who were often our parents) told us that everyone was good enough no matter how much better or worse you did than the other kids. There was still a prize at the end of the season.

We are the “No Child Left Behind” generation. I had my first standardized test in 3rd grade. As a ten-year-old, I was responsible for determining the funding my school received. Maybe it wasn’t that extreme, but I’m pretty sure I’m not far off. From then on, I was a test score before I was a student.

We are the selfie generation. Yes. Social media has doomed us all. Myspace came out when I was 7. Facebook the year after. So by the time I was old enough to join, I could already have 100 people be my “friend” and pay attention to whatever I wanted to say. In a way, social media is a lot like a participation trophy. Anyone can join, and at least one other person will likely give you a thumbs up just for typing the words, “I farted.”

It’s no wonder we’re soo messed up. We are the first generation that has hardly lived in a time where we couldn’t send a message to millions of people in an instant. We have become dependent on that ability to gain attention without working towards acclamation.

This is not to say my generation is a generation of underachievers. I think we will end up being a generation of amazing overachievers, but we’re not quite there yet. We need to figure out how to use all this power for good. I think we’re starting to do that, every time we post something and say, “Why is no one talking about this?” Every time we use our smartphones to help our parents and grand parents, we’re using that power for good. Every time we post meaningful things online we’re using that power for good.

I think the misuse of that power is a big source of that oversensitivity. If we’re not being praised for insignificant action, we play the victim because it’s an easy way to gain that attention back. I think it’s stupid. I think it’s childish. And too often, it’s not just annoying to other people, it’s inhibiting our own growth. We use these catchphrases we learn online like “politically correct” and “triggering” to describe situations that have nothing to do with such adjectives, and suddenly we’re putting ourselves in a corner because the world is “too offensive.”

Look, friends, it’s easy for me to say it because I have always been tough-skinned (I’m the youngest of 4, I had to be), but grow up. If you feel attacked, don’t cry about it, do something about it. If you feel opposed, form an argument. If you feel like someone doesn’t understand you, try to understand them. We have all our priorities messed up, and this idealistic society we think we’re creating is not going to work. There’s always going to be a hater, but crying in the corner isn’t going to get rid of them.

xoxo,

Kam

 

Is My Generation “Oversensitive” or Tired?

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In light of the recent events at Mizzou and other mostly college-based incidents, many people have shared the opinion that my generation (mostly current students) have become overly sensitive and are being coddled with things like “trigger warnings” and the term “hate crimes.”

Now I have long been a defender of freedom of speech. As a writer, and one whose opinions are often somewhat inflammatory, I need the first amendment to support my rights. I would even go so far as to say I am on the fence when it comes to unlimited free speech, which is essentially the concept in question as Mizzou. However, historically the line that has been drawn between things protected by freedom of speech and things not protected has been found in the concept of “clear and present danger.”

Quick history lesson: essentially, your speech cannot be limited by government action unless it involves a clear and present danger, based on the Supreme Court Ruling in Schenck vs. United States in 1919. Basically, you can’t yell “fire” in a movie theatre, unless there is a fire.

What does that have to do with my generation? The argument some are making is that free speech is too limited now because my generation is overly sensitive to things like racial slurs, cultural appropriation, and anything else that “might” be seen as discriminatory. I would agree, in some cases it has gone too far, Mizzou is not one of them. There is a difference between someone claiming or even feeling “offended” and someone feeling threatened.

We get it. You’re tired of hearing about race issues. You’re tired of hearing that black lives matter. You’re tired of someone’s name becoming a hashtag every single week, but let me tell you: people of color ar tired of living in an oppressive society. They are tired of being told that their feelings are not valid because we’re a postmodern society that doesn’t see color. They’re tired of being told that racism ended when every week another name becomes a hashtag. Another group of white students thinks it’s funny to make fun of a people that has been enslaved, marginalized, and outright disrespected in this nation from the minute they were shoved onto a boat. It’s one thing if a white friend says the n-word in a playful way. It’s not okay, but it might not cause much uproar. It is another thing to use the n-word for its original intention- to dehumanize black people. That is what is happening at Mizzou, among other real threats.

We’ve all heard of the old question, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Today, social media is the sound. Police brutality, racist fraternities, hate crimes are not new. They have been here forever, but no one was around to tweet about it. My generation seems “oversensitive” because we’re the first generation where every single one of us has a voice online. I don’t have to try to get my name on a newspaper or spoken in the news. I type #ConcernedStudent1950 and hundreds of people see what I’m saying. Issues like this feel so loud now because they’re all around us on every website.

To say that Mizzou students are “oversensitive” is offensive. By saying this, you are contributing to the systematic racism that started the whole thing. It’s your fault. Do not tell them that their feelings are invalid because they are finally saying something about them. If fear is an invalid feeling, let me remind you that George Zimmerman got away with murder based on his “fear.”

xoxo

Kam

The Race Thing

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To answer the big question of “what am I?” I am mixed black and white. My father was black and my mother is white, and I am a beautiful caramel macchiato.

This has never really been a problem for me. When I was in first grade a girl asked me if I was adopted when she saw my mom, but that’s been pretty much the extent of my raced-based interactions. I struggle with my hair. People ask “What am I?” and sometimes men approach me with a reluctant, “Hola?” thinking I am Latina.

The quick answer and identity I used for college applications was and always has been black. Partially because I’ve always just kind of felt black, and partially because whatever I am, I am simply not white. However, I realized something this week. I am very white.

No, I wasn’t trying to prove my dance moves. I wasn’t complaining about the food being too spicy. I was actually in a classroom. My writing professor assigned a reading to us about “Black English,” and one teacher’s passion for teaching the cultural dialect as a written language. I could not have felt whiter.

The goal of the piece was to highlight the issues with “Standard English,” and to speak to the injustice done to the black community by not accepting their syntax as “proper.” This did not sit well with me. I was raised to not say “ain’t,” not use double negatives, and to enunciate each word carefully. I’ve spent years drilling the rules of English grammar into my skull, and here this professor seemed to be undoing all my hard work.

I don’t want to address the question of prejudice here. I want to speak more about my own experience and identity that was brought to light from this lesson.

I found myself hating this piece because I was angry that someone was saying my precious rules for grammar were systematically oppressive. Then I was confused because in feeling this anger, was I coming from a place of internalized racism? This begged a larger question, and one I have kind of held in the back of my head since coming to college: am I black enough? There are things I know and things I am not sure about. I know that I stand against racism. I am not sure I am a victim of it.

I know, especially compared to too many other people of color, I have never experienced outright personal racism. But have I internalized it based on the fact that I can’t get down with “Black English?” I know some people would tell me yes. I only hate Black English because the white man has told me to hate Black English. But I think I actually, as a writer, as a rule follower, enjoy conforming to the rules of standard English. Yes, these rules came from a bunch of white men, but so did the Constitution and I do love my freedom of Speech.

I don’t know where my endgame here is. I guess, if you are someone who wants to speak and write in “Black English” I can’t and won’t try to stop you, but I’m not going to use it myself. And I don’t think that makes me any less black. I think it means I was raised differently or come from a different culture. I will respect that it does not make you less educated or less refined, as the piece pointed out, students who tried to switch from Standard English to Black English had trouble conforming to its rules. And even if it was “easy” it would not be invalid.

I guess my point is, don’t make me choose. I cannot choose which race I want to be every day. I don’t think any part of me is strictly based in one-half of my chromosomes. I just don’t want to feel like I’m betraying either one of my races in saying this, so I’m not going to. I’m mixed, and that’s not important because at the end of the day I’m Kamaron no matter what.

xoxo,

Kam

In Defense of the Student Athlete

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This is going to get ranty, and it also is going to be somewhat specific to Sarah Lawrence, the college I attend.

For those of you who do not attend SLC, as of 2015, we are a member of the Skyline Conference of NCAA Division III. We currently have 15 men’s and women’s varsity athletic teams, and will be adding women’s basketball to that list next year. Sarah Lawrence is known for its quirkiness, in a nutshell. We were founded as a women’s college, we are now and have been co-ed since 1968, and our men to women ratio holds around 40:60.

Campus climate is changing. I don’t know when it started, as I’ve only been here a year and a half, almost, but very soon after I arrived I was made aware of these changes. There is a common belief that the administration wants to make Sarah Lawrence a more “normalized” college essentially by adding more males to campus. How do we do this? Add sports and science. Duh, because every male ever loves sports and science. I have heard the president herself say this is not true, and whether or not she is speaking in truth can remain in question. However, regardless of the reasons behind the “push” for athletics, the campus climate is very heavily enraged at athletes.

Whether it be due to the gender situation, or the “ideal Sarah Lawrence student” idea, the hatred towards athletes on this campus is clear and visible. I know. I am an athlete. I don’t go a single day without someone complaining about athletics.

I bring this up now because I am fed up. I just sat through a student senate meeting where other school issues were in discussion, and this idea kept popping up that some of these problems would go away if we didn’t become Division III or we stop “pouring money into athletics.” First of all, I cannot find anything on the world wide web that says it costs anything for a school to join the NCAA. So the idea that we spent all this money to join this jock club is at the moment, untrue.

Second of all, our school is broke. No one has money. We have such a small endowment that not a single department is functioning to its best ability. That is a fact. We can’t blame one department for this. You attackers of athletes are making us a scapegoat.

Third, there are no athletic scholarships. Period. The NCAA doesn’t allow it.

To address this idea that Sarah Lawrence athletes are not really Sarah Lawrence students. It kills me that I am being told to prove my worth at this school because I am an athlete. I have not encountered a problem with faculty, but some of my classmates have. So it’s not just the students. I personally must address the students. To quote the Sarah Lawrence website,

“NCAA Division III is designed for small liberal arts colleges—Bard, Skidmore, Wellesley, and Vassar are all members. In Division III, as at Sarah Lawrence, athletes are students first. They’re encouraged to take part in other extracurricular activities, and there are no athletic scholarships or stadiums full of roaring crowds.”

We are students first. We are Sarah Lawrence students first. People are freaking out because now we can recruit athletes to come here. Listen, Sarah Lawrence will always be a self-selecting school. Recruiting is just a way to find Sarah Lawrence students that might also be really talented athletes. Here’s what happens: either a student falls in love with Sarah Lawrence and decides to come here. Cool bonus: they also play a sport and are able to continue playing that sport at SLC (this happened to me, among so many other people). OR: a student is sought out by a coach from Sarah Lawrence. The student is an incredible athlete, but Sarah Lawrence isn’t the fit for them, because, go figure, some people need a college experience outside of athletics. So they don’t come here. Or, they do come here, and they end up regretting their decision because Sarah Lawrence wasn’t the right place for them.

Part of being such a weird school means not everyone is going to like it here. BUT some people are going to like it here and they’re also going to like sports. It’s just how people work. Clearly, some people didn’t watch High School Musical, and learn that it’s okay to be a jock and like theatre or play the cello.

To students against student athletes: we got into the same school as you. We take the same classes as you. We pay the same tuition as you. We abide by the same rules you do AS WELL AS NCAA rules (which aren’t always fun, to be honest). Stop scapegoating. Stop blaming us. STOP HATING.

xoxo

Kam