To the Editor:
I would like to respond, briefly, to the review of the lecture given by Elaine Kim this past weekend ("Kim's Speech: Promoting Diversity?," Oct. 11).
While the impulse to measure a speaker's effectiveness by charting her consistency and adherence to logic is an understandable one, the world in which we live is neither consistent nor logical. Sometimes I am compelled to lament this fact, and sometimes I am compelled to celebrate it.
For people of color and for women -- as for any other individual or group devalued because they are different -- the acknowledgment that oppression poisons the institutions and practices which shape our lives must always be tempered with the resolute will to craft ways of living within that inhospitable environment, and gesturing toward freedom from it. In other words, we're caught in the paradox of having no tools but the masters' with which to forge an entirely new home.
Kim's lecture provided an inspiring and complex model for change, demonstrating for Dartmouth's community how the links between intellectual and social work can be made meaningful and how coalitions to effect change can be fashioned. Along with many others I know, I would like to praise and thank the Student Assembly, especially the members who have worked so tirelessly to make this year's symposium on women, leadership and activism possible.
