I am the reason we have not defeated world poverty. I am the cause for the continued existence of AIDS in Africa. It is my fault that the children of the Indian Ocean countries, ravaged by the tsunami, do not have adequate food and shelter right now. I am Jack's indomitable sense of guilt.
I am of course guilty of none of those things, but when I went to check my blitz yesterday a few times, be it in the Hop, Alumni Gym, or Thayer, and I stared at our bright, shiny new eMacs, I definitely felt like it. I have nothing but praise for the Student Assembly and the College for giving us these machines. It was certainly appreciated after using the old iMacs for far too long -- and yet, I cannot help but feel the most intense pang of guilt I have felt in a while. People all over the world cannot make enough money to feed themselves and their families; forget the rest of the world, plenty of families here in the old US of A have trouble with that. And I stand before a Blitz terminal, practically glowing with its decadence in my cynical eyes, and I see $20,000 standing in front of me contributing to a criminally comfortable life.
Obviously, this is hypocritical of me. I voted for Dubya, I support welfare reform, am uncomfortable with quota-style affirmative action programs, and, for some reason I have yet to figure out, have not donated a nickel to the tsunami relief. I sit here in Hanover on a pile of gold, relatively speaking, worth more than the amount most people in this world make over the course of their entire life, and I feel horrible. And yet I do hardly anything. I feel like the protagonist in a novel trying to comment on man's selfishness.
I bring up this not to lay out my inner contradictions for the Dartmouth community; I do it to spark a debate. There is a gap at this school. Like the rich-poor gap that so many people are so eager to discuss, there is a gap between ideals and action. Let me make this clear before going further: I am not attacking anyone at this school in particular. Most students here do wonderful things, whether it is community service in the Upper Valley or restoring graves of Jews killed in the Holocaust. But on the other hand, there are certain ideals this community, like most collegiate communities, espouses as a whole. They are liberalism, diversity, and the ilk. Collectively, this school talks the talk, but does not walk the walk.
Consider a hypothetical: I am offended that this school has invited a black man to speak in honor of, say, George Washington's birthday. The existence of Presidents' Day and the nonexistence of such a speaker aside, allow me to make my point. Any reader should have been taken aback by that comment. Then why, pray tell, was it acceptable for a student cited in this paper a week or two ago to say he was offended by a choice of a white, lesbian feminist to speak in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.? Moreover, why was it acceptable for this community last spring to defend to the death of free speech when a member of the Weather Underground terrorist organization spoke here on campus, and yet this community overwhelmingly expressed disapproval of Daniel Pipes' talk here last week?
The other day in these very pages, a columnist brought up what was referred to as the "separate but equal" phenomenon at Dartmouth. I recently overheard a conversation between several non-white students while eating in which it was said that one of the girls has yet to find a white man attractive. I asked myself -- what would be the reaction if I publicly declared I did not find black women attractive, simply due to their blackness (which, incidentally, is not true)? I stress that I do not mean to criticize these individuals for their actions. Indeed, I support these individuals' rights to proclaim them. I criticize the community for its hypocritical acceptance of them.
My answers to these questions matter little. My opinion is that students on this campus are liberal and supportive of diversity so long as those beliefs aid what they hold to be true and not the other side. However, what really matter are your answers. Are you comfortable being a member of a community in which terrorists are welcome and controversial, anti-Muslim speakers are not? Do you employ a double-standard when you view the world through the white/non-white spectrum? Do you, as dictionary.com (much to my chagrin) essentially does, define liberalism as basically everything good and conservatism basically as everything else? I do not, and I am not comfortable with that. But then again, I am a registered Republican. Are these communal biases truly what it means to be liberal and diverse?
