The sit-in watched ’round the campus. An occupation of Parkhurst broadcast live for all to see. Transparency is the beauty — and hazard — of this public dissemination. Anyone can watch the action firsthand and form his or her own opinions and conclusions. Yet will the protestors allow these opinions and conclusions to enter the public discourse or will they refuse to concede their legitimacy? In light of what we have seen so far, I think the latter is more likely.
One fundamental flaw in the protestors’ ideology is their apparent belief that they have a monopoly on pain and suffering. One protestor, responding to remarks by undergraduate Scott Mitchell that the protest appeared to be more of an accusation than a conversation, said, “You can put on your blazer and you’ll be just fine. I can put on my blazer and pretend that everything is okay, but it really isn’t.” The tacit assumption is that those who are not members of oppressed minority groups cannot possibly understand persecution because they have never been subjected to it. However, while someone who is not a member of a minority group may never have been subjected to the exact same biases, that does not mean that they have not experienced other, equally afflicting sources of hurt. In brandishing this monopoly on woe, the protestors take away some of the most important tools in the development of understanding and empathy: comparison of experiences and reciprocal validation.
The protestors deem their feelings and experiences valid and expect everyone else to agree. Yet they fail to recognize the validity of others’ feelings and experiences. The students involved need to stop alleging that their narrative is the only relevant or valuable narrative to the discussion at hand. They do not speak for all minorities on this campus. Rather, they are hijacking the conversations surrounding them, without considering other viewpoints. There needs to be acknowledgment that other people have valid opinions and could legitimately want to — and should be allowed to — participate equally in the conversation.
For students who do not belong to minority groups, the only point of entry into this conversation is through comparison, something the protestors do not appear to permit. The live feed reveals that attempts by students who are not members of minority groups to try and share stories of perceived bias or to relate to the participants seemed to be immediately silenced. Apparently, situations recounted by outsiders cannot be equated or even likened to the experiences of Freedom Budget supporters.
What the protestors fail to realize is that, as human beings, we are hardwired to compare and contrast our experiences with those of others, in order to further understand both ourselves and the object of our comparisons. Such comparison is necessary. Even if there are different (perceived) degrees of harm and suffering inflicted on different individuals and groups, comparison is integral in creating empathy and understanding — which eventually lead to unity.
In one of my classes — “The International History of Human Rights” — we discussed a critical notion on Wednesday. In most successful rights movements, such as abolitionism, a central concept stressed in the development and early stages of the movement was the establishment of shared dignity and humanity between the oppressed and the oppressors. Demonizing the oppressors entirely, pointing out their alleged injustices and wrongs, can lead to defensiveness and a refusal to acknowledge or consider the intended message. Appeals to empathy and humanity are more likely to move the conversation towards concord and progress. People must be allowed to relate to situations in order to recognize their shared humanity and the commonality of the human experience so that they, too, make the conscious decision to change their own behaviors and work toward change in the community as a whole.
