Messed Up Priorities

Hello! My name is Kyle and I am so excited to be taking up residence here at Cambridge Common! I hope to bring the perspective of a male feminist, an insider and outsider of political action at Harvard, and much more to this vibrant community.

 

I come from a background of white, male privilege (among many others). As such, I am constantly striving to recognize my invisible benefits and to break the wall of silence about them. Many times I will say things that display my ignorance of my own special rights and I hope you will be patient with me and maybe even help point out that ignorance.

 

As an opening post, I want to be a little meta. Many people question the legitimacy of political/current events blogs. That is a big debate, and it is useful for informing how we invest time and energy online. Within this debate, Cambridge Common exists in a special environment.

 

Harvard is commonly referred to as being in a “bubble.” Within this bubble, there are certain institutions that posses a large amount of information capital. These institutions tend to adhere to a strange perspective on the Harvard universe and beyond. I will not try to characterize this perspective myself (Markus Kolic does a good job of it here). This situation plays itself out by molding the conversation on campus into one which is almost absurd.

 

For example, The Harvard Crimson recently did a piece on a fake pro-war rally that the Harvard Anti-War Coalition staged. I suspect that someone in the newsroom read one of the provocative (yet satirical) emails we distributed and sent a reporter to the rally. This reporter was under the assumption that the rally was actually in support of the War in Iraq. Such a rally being a novelty at “Liberal” Harvard, the Crimson had to report on it.

 

The thing is, there are anti-war rallies, walks, and actions every single week on campus. However, the Crimson rarely sends anyone to report on these events even though they have larger numbers, usually involve entertaining tactics, and are not fake. Due to the fact that a pro-war rally would be contrarian, the news gatekeepers latch onto it whereas an actual rally with actual significance gets forgotten because it is too expected by those who decide what is relevant.

 

One more example of this skewed view of what is important is a recent story about a discussion between the Radcliffe Union of Students and Diamond Magazine. Similar discussions are held every week and last week there was one on “How To Have A Feminist Relationship.” This recent discussion attracted more than twice as many people as the one in the story and the conversation was helpful to the participants involved by fleshing out what a feminist relationship is and how to try to have one.

 

The latter kinds of discussions produce useful ideas. However, they do not appeal to the proto-journalists nearly as much as the vapid clash between the playboy and the feminist. So, to hell with trying to inform the campus; present sensationalism and superficiality so that the media conglomerates will hire you from your pre-professional newspaper mill.

 

I may sound like I just have a grudge against the Crimson. This is not the case. I also do not mean to excoriate the individual writers (I talked for a while with both of them and they are good people). The problem is the culture of the Crimson and other quasi-elite sources of news and opinion on campus.

 

To answer this problem, other sites of reporting and commentary about the Harvard community are needed. We must expand the discourse to include more voices and more information. We should seek out stories that are being left untold and ideas that are being marginalized. The students at this place need it, but more importantly, the world that these “future leaders” will presumably inherit deserves it. Hopefully we here at Cambridge Common can help with that!