Abhishek Gangulee (The Dartmouth, April 10th, "Misguided Protest") makes a few nice points in his editorial, among them, that college students can be a bit myopic and overly earnest with what they view as horrible, Trustee-inflicted social injustice and undergraduate subjugation. The fact that some people in an "American Ivy League school" invariably find something to whine about to such a degree typically strikes some people who are not in American Ivy League schools as laughably spoiled and self-indulgent. And to those people of university age who daily face life-and-death troubles in places were the words "Visa" and "American Express" are means of escape from real authoritarian oppression -- I can only imagine what they think of us. Mention the "Greek situation" in certain parts of the world and you're far more likely to get a polemic reaction that has less to do with the right to fraternal assembly and more to do with mass genocide and the hegemony of the Turkish Kemalist state. So perhaps a little perspective is a good thing, especially for all those black turtleneck-clad, pale-skinned killjoys that Gangulee so hates to see around campus.
But I think the editorial does go too far to imply that every protest rally or every attempt at reforming the student environment at Dartmouth is in vain. Asking for a little representation now and then isn't necessarily the product of a don't-know-how-good-we-have-it youth culture reared on Smiths recordings and Douglas Copeland novels. There are a lot of aspects to Dartmouth life that could genuinely use revamping, amidst other aspects that have admittedly always been great and appealing and the likely cause for such large applicant pools year after year. Women should be able to enjoy the benefits of higher education without being called "bitches" or worse. Alfred Valrie's assertion (The Dartmouth, April 10th, "Black By Popular Demand") that black students are under-represented and under-populating is a valid one that deserves attention. And I'm sure in their more enlightened, less inebriated moments, certain members of Psi Upsilon fraternity would agree that Native Americans deserve to be spared from "Wah Woo Wah" epithets that are evidently better suited and more marketable at Turner Stadium (particularly in the pitcher's bull pen).
So to Abhishek: I think while the state of affairs in rustic Hanover, N.H. seems idyllic when matched against that of India or even West Philadelphia, that's not to say that the unhappy masses don't occasionally have a point about striving for a more perfect community. From a Black Turtleneck-Clad, Pale-Skinned Killjoy.
