Yes, yes. The word is out and about. Now it's time for the armchair quarterbacks to come in and criticize everything. Here it comes, brace yourselves.
First of all, I'd like to give a shout out to the guys who went up on the balconies with the megaphones. That was wicked smart. You are dumb.
Now, in the words of Walter Sochek, "A line must be drawn, this aggression will not stand. That rug really tied the room together." The simplest fact that came to mind as I read the steering committee report this morning was that unfortunately, none of this will work.
New buildings and social spaces are fine. In fact they are to be applauded. It's exactly what this campus needs. However, not allowing alcohol to be served at a party in the absence of a college bartender and ID checker, will produce the exact wrong effect from that which the College is seeking to promote. If I'm a freshman and I know I can't get a drink at a registered party, what do I do? I have an unregistered party in my room (with fewer than 6 people of course) and I get wildly drunk off of hard alcohol that my UGA bought me. If not my UGA, somebody on my floor. If not somebody on my floor, somebody on my athletic team. So, instead of allowing the underage students to "sow their oats" in a public and safe environment, it will drive them underground. Or, and this is the part I love, if the College really succeeds in limiting the alcohol consumption of all students, say goodbye to Dartmouth and hello to UVM! That's right. Potheads, rest assured! The market for controlled substances is about to triple.
Because, dear readers, the simple fact of the matter is that kids will be kids. Boys will be loud, obnoxious, annoying, misogynistic and sometimes violent. Girls will naturally do whatever it is that girls need to do. Not really sure what exactly it is that they do to be girls, but I'm damn sure that they will do it.
Does that mean the status quo should go on? No. Absolutely not. There is no way I will be convinced that the proper way to comport myself socially is to go down to a basement, get so drunk that I cannot talk, and then find a woman I can hook up with. But that currently is the great Dartmouth success story. Or vice versa. A sorority has a party and it works the other way.
Does that mean that minorities should feel ostracized from associating with predominantly white CFS organizations? No. Absolutely not. There is no way I will be convinced that the black community should confine itself to the Aam and an apartment in the River, that the Latinos should segregate themselves, that the Native Americans should hang out in the NAD house, that homosexuals should feel awkward in Greek houses and the rest of campus is for the straight, white people. It's ridiculous.
When a group of us went in front of the steering committee, we talked about the need for greater diversity in the houses. I told President Wright once that I felt as though the minorities on campus were equally as self-segregating as they were segregated by Caucasian Dartmouth. Why is all the affinity housing in the extreme North end of campus? Why is it that minorities are pressured NOT to join a predominantly white house by other Dartmouth minorities? The answer, as I told the steering committee, is that I have no idea. But the problem is societal. And it will not be stopped by requiring bartenders and UGAs in fraternities and sororities.
The problem of gender relations will NOT be remedied through these recommendations. The problem of race relations will NOT be remedied by these recommendations. A review of affinity programs? A review? The problem of alcohol abuse may be remedied, but it will lead to underground alcoholism or widespread drug abuse. The lack of social space will be remedied, and that is laudable, but basically I feel that these recommendations will change everything, yet fix nothing, as the CFS slowly disappears from view. Only then will people realize the truth: we're all stuck here in this god-awful, cold, sunless hellhole so that our parents can pay $30,000 to a corporation which will tell us what to do, how to think, where to live, eat, and sleep, who to hang out with, and when it's okay to hang out. Then, they will validate our existence with a large square piece of paper with some writing on it, and we'll go off to wherever it is that we're going, and remember that we had a couple interesting classes, but not much else happened. Pretty schweet, huh?
So here's my recommendation. I recommend that tonight, everyone go down to whatever basement you have, be it a dorm, affinity, undergraduate society, off-campus apartment, or Greek house, and remember the words of Mikey from Goonies, "Up there, it's their time. But down here, down here it's our time."
