Mandatory Reading

In 1995, scholar George Lipsitz wrote about a “possessive investment in whiteness.” Against whiteness everything else is othered: “As the unmarked category against which difference is constructed, whiteness never has to speak its name, never has to acknowledge its role as an organizing principle in social and cultural relations.” I read this text in Spanish 126, a class called “Performing Latinidad.” Before this class, I felt uncomfortably queasy, uncomfortably radical saying “whiteness.”

At Harvard, there is a whiteness in which we possessively invest. There is a cultural hierarchy, and we have all been in the thick of the woods for a while, climbing towards the snowcap that is whiteness. The climb, whether consciously or subconsciously, is in the way that I choose to dress, the way that I talk, and the communities with which I associate (or perhaps more importantly, do not associate) on campus. It is in the way that I force myself to take seriously the politicians and dignitaries that filter through our campus in the form of white liberalism. It is in the way that I network with them at the reception after the talk. It is floating generally in the air, in the nonchalance and the lack of sufficient anger at what has been happening at Mizzou and Yale. We are all helplessly possessiveness of our pieces of whiteness, because they are the cards you need to succeed at the game given its current rules.

There is a difference between diversity and inclusivity. Diversity is the pie chart on the admissions website, the literal spectrum of skin colors on a subway pole. But inclusivity is about how you accommodate that diversity, without asking that it accommodate the harshness of society in return. Inclusivity is about changing the game rather than being complacent with teaching people how to play it well. If this would have more credibility explained in your classic Western theory, inclusivity is about learning how to free your thoughts from the Weberian “iron cage.” It’s about unleashing our creativity to create a better, more accommodating society. But this is hard, because centuries and centuries of possessive investment in whiteness has done a lot to distance us from our creativity.

This is hard because it requires the empathy earned from releasing a bit of our possessiveness, our self-centered urge to advance in a problematic game. And if empathy is too subjective a term for you, it requires the right vocabulary and the academic knowledge to give flesh to your discomfort, your anger, and your ideas for change.

Empathy. Vocabulary. Creativity. Now, right now, in the intellectual luxury and urgency of college, is the time to work on developing them. The resources are lacking but ever-present at our university in the courses that explore the histories and sociologies of oppression. The past week has been an outpouring of courage and support for the students at Mizzou and at Yale on social media. Next semester, I hope the same people will upgrade their courage to action by enrolling in a class in African American Studies or one of the myriad courses available in ethnic studies through the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights.

These courses are as much disciplines—a term used to describe no more than ways of engaging the world as an academic problem—in their own right as mainstream social science disciplines such as political science and anthropology. If classes in these popularized social sciences have given you fluency in an understanding of the world that has been elevated and perpetuated by structures of power, classes in ethnic studies and in African American Studies will equip you with the empathy needed to even out the playing field.

We need that empathy now, right now, to address what is going on not only at Mizzou and at Yale, but also at Harvard and at every school in the United States. There is no better time than now, right now, to do your mandatory reading.

Jenny J. Choi ’16, is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.