Cambridge Common

Presently, the Black Eyed Peas are characterized as a Pop group. Simple and plain. A visit to Launch.Com will reveal that they are not categorized as a rap group or even alternative rap group, but pop. Pop as a genre of music is an interesting thing. Some people take it narrowly to mean music light on bass (relatively), heavy on chorus, and sing-songy non-serious lyrics about love. Others take it broadly to mean POPular music of any variety that is widely appreciated (read: bought). I see the Black Eyed Peas as being closer to the broad definition than to the narrow one, though they are moving more and more to the narrow definition with each passing single. In the past two years as their popularity has exponentially grown their musical image has ventured further and further from their pre-Fergie era. Relatedly, I remember being a senior in high school and hearing "Where Is The Love?" and thinking, "Black Eyed Peas and Justin Timberlake?!? That's like Led Zeppelin and Frank Sinatra!" I felt that the Black Eyed Peas had sold out and gone "pop", but I had no idea of the extent to which they would do so and become corporate pawns and musical sidekicks in the group THEY started.

Another way to chart the pop progression of the Black Eyed Peas is to take a look at the styles of their four albums as assessed by AllMusic.Com. According to this website, the Black Eyed Peas' album styles of music went from "Alternative Rap" to "Pop-Rap" to "Party Rap". Although the line between the 2nd and 3rd sub-genres may be fuzzy to some, "pop rap" is defined as being widely accepted rap and "party rap" is rap specifically aimed at being played at parties, in my humble opinion. A current look at the most recent single from BEP shows that they are DEFINITELY putting out party rap music. "My Humps" is currently the #3 song in the U.S. and may reach #1 due to its still increasing popularity. But wait? Is party/pop rap new to the Black Eyed Peas? Before 2003 were they not putting out records aimed at getting people to tell DJs to "turn that sh*t up, play it again" or "make a brother feel like I'm in the disco"? Yup. They were (listen to "Joints and Jams" or "Request Line"). Hmmm...what gives?

Prior to 2003 the Black Eyed Peas employed Kim Hill as their backup singer. She is the female vocalist heard in the aforementioned "Joints and Jams". She is Black. You've probably never heard of her. In 2003 Hill was replaced by Fergie--a small, energetic bundle of U.S. status quo affirmation that proved to have the ability to take BEP to the next level. Whichever exec at A&M was behind getting Fergie into the group should be the label President. Really. Despite pouring what was surely millions of dollars into two widely-released albums by the Black Eyed Pease in 1998 and 2000 they bore very little commercial fruit. However, after adding a White female to the group in contrast to the Native American, Filipino-American, and Jamaican-American in the group sales exploded. Whereas Hill was rarely featured prominently in videos and never featured on album covers, Fergie was. Also of note on the first two BEP album covers is the prominence of the big, melanin-filled faces of males on the dark backdrop in contrast to the more holistic view and lighter backdrop of their most recent album cover. One says "BLACK MUSIC...SCARY!" while the other says "You have nothing to fear. This is now integrated music."

In the same vein as Eminem in relation to D-12 or Elvis Presley in relation to Chuck Berry, a White person has now been put at the forefront of what was previously a Black...situation, let's say. This age-old gimmick has been around for a long time and is continuing with the Black Eyed Peas and their new leader (yeah, I said it), Fergie. A visit to Launch.Com again shows that when one searches for the Black Eyed Peas, their picture is not a group one but solely that of Fergie. Is she the entire group (or even one of the founding members)? No. Additionally, a Google "Images" search for Black Eyed Peas reveals Fergie as the very first picture. According to Launch (a subsidiary of Yahoo!, Inc.) and Google, Inc.--two of the largest information superhighway corporations in the world--Black Eyed Peas = Fergie. Additionally, the popularity of "My Humps" brings Fergie even more publicity separate from that of BEP since it is nearly a solo song. Sad. The mass appeal that Fergie has brought to the Black Eyed Peas is quite sad. They are creating (largely) the same type of music that they have been creating all of their career but their group now has a White face and leader. The music industry "powers that be" behind the marketing and exploitation of BEP as a "pop" group did so in the interest of increasing the bottom line. This is wrong. What was once a cutting edge group for non-status quo, non-commerical radio fiends has become just that. Fergie and Corporate America (the REAL name of this country) have teamed up to once again push genre-leading Black artists to the periphery, market their product with a White face, and make boatloads of money while doing so. Poor (literally) Kim Hill.

This is tremendously important to me. It acknowledges an imperfection in thought and a complexity of analysis and opinion that is almost never present in other forms of media. A Crimson staff ed, for example, is often the result of give and take and discussion similar to that which occurs in our threads. By the time it is in the paper for consumption, however, it is supposed to represent some sort of perfect piece of analysis, an opinion with an immaculate conception and often without the acknowledgments of the possible inconsistencies, the dissenting factors, and the ideological frameworks. The messy nature of opinion, of different frames of analysis, different sets of facts and the occasional (or often) inadequacies of the logic or writing itself, are all hidden behind the black and white text, away from public scrutiny. As Katie has pointed out, Cambridge Common allows for us to have a different conception of truth and opinion that is much more fluid and contingent, much messier and more complex.

And this is important not simply because truth is usually that messy and complex, but also because I think it's important to acknowledge that just because I run (or write for) a website or newspaper doesn't suddenly make me smarter than everyone else. This is especially true at a place like Harvard, where it is likely that while I may have more knowledge of one sliver of experience or academia, I am fundamentally ignorant in many many other areas in which those around me are quite brilliant. We write here, then, more out of a political desire to begin conversations and a passion for our opinions, but with full acknowledgment that we are fallible and that it is important to constantly subject ourselves to scrutiny by those who may (and often do) know more. While opinion writing does involve a leap of arrogance, the comments section is there to humble us for our own sake and for the sake of our readers. If the process works, than the result of any given conversation thread is simultaneously more thoughtful, more productive, and more engaging than simple front page opinion journalism.

All of this is a long way of me saying that, while new media and "blogs" can be easily and properly ridiculed in many ways for being trite vanity projects or ideological echo chambers (and I'm sure we have our moments of both), it is the contributions of the readers, the creation of a community as is beginning to occur, that prevents us from going that route. So thank you for coming and thank you for reading. If you have been contributing, whether with support or critique, explanation or anecdote, thank you. If you have not been, feel free to do so.

The pictures below are of, in order, the rally at Holyoke Center (Vice Mayor Decker is speaking), the march beginning to march down Massachusetts Avenue, the march continuing toward Johnston's Gate, the march moving through the Yard, and finally protestors waiting to express themselves to the, unsurprisingly, no show President Summers.

One of the problems with the case at this point, of course, is that it's almost impossible to know what will happen next. Fitzgerald describes why secrecy is important, but it's still incredibly frustrating. However, one Andrew Sullivan reader (and Sullivan himself) have an interesting take:

A READER NAILS IT: This blog's greatest resource is you. Here's an email that shows why:

Just got through reading a transcript of the Fitz press conference, and a few things stood out.

As bizarre as that baseball analogy was, I think it said a lot about what might happen in the next few days or weeks. Seems to me that when discussing the possibility of a leak-related crime, e.g. violation of either the Intelligence Identities Act or Espionage Act, Fitz focused on how such prosecutions were very difficult because they require proof of a mental state. (Hence the silly analogy about a pitcher throwing at guy's head.) Under both statutes, the disclosure of classified info must be intentional or purposeful, i.e., the perp must have "known" that the information was classified (for the Espionage Act) or that the agent was "covert," among other things (under the Intelligence Act). As Fitz asked, "was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused? Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?"

I don't know what Fitz knows. But I think he is one inch from prosecuting the leak itself - at least his public comments leave the impression that he's pissed about it - and the only thing holding him back is that he's afraid he can't prove state of mind. Proving state of mind is really hard in any case -- and it's especially hard when the defendant is an intelligent career political operative with an expensive white collar defense lawyer. I think Fitz can do it, and I think Fitz thinks he can do it, but he seems to be playing it cautious. Why?

Let's just take the Espionage Act. Fitz clearly said that Plame's position was classified, he implied strongly that it related to national security, and as Josh Marshall pointed out in a recent post, the indictment itself states that both Cheney and Libby knew the precise division of the CIA where she worked, which by definition made her covert. So right there - as soon as he tells that to Miller - you have a prima facie violation of the Espionage Act.

Fitz also said, "I don't buy that theory [that one should never use the Espionage statute], but I do know you should be very careful in applying that law because there are a lot of interests that could be implicated in making sure that you picked the right case to charge that statute ... You want to know what their motive is, you want to know their state of knowledge, you want to know their intent, you want to know the facts." He went on to lament the fact that Libby had lied, thus throwing the proverbial sand in his eyes.

What's all this mean? Well, seems like Fitz has a pretty strong case for the Espionage Act, and if Plame met the objective standards in the Intelligence Act, for that one too. And it seems like the fact that Libby lied repeatedly is very strong evidence of a culpable state of mind, belying any claim that he didn't "know" the info was classified or that divulging it was wrong. Add that to the very specific allegation in the indictment that he knew exactly where she worked, and there it is.

So why not charge it? Because Fitz has Libby nailed on the 5 counts from today's indictment. Just nailed. So he's bringing Libby in on those charges, they're going to talk some turkey, and Fitz is going to see if Libby will talk, maybe about VP, maybe about Official A (who's clearly Rove), or maybe about the VP's moles at State and in the CIA. Offer some carrots - maybe no jail - but if Libby refuses, then Fitz brings down the espionage or intelligence act charges. Libby has nowhere to go, and Fitz knows it. In my view, he's going to try to exploit that opening before wrapping this thing up.

That's entirely my view as well, after mulling this over some more for a few hours. From the evidence we now have, it seems crystal clear to me that Libby knew he was out of line when he leaked the Plame name, and perjured himself to protect himself and the real source of the leak, Cheney. He gambled that the reporters wouldn't squeal; and that he could cleverly spin his phone conversations so that the information seemed to come from reporters, not him. The question now is whether he will now turn against his colleagues and master to save his own skin. This story is just beginning. Ultimately, it's about Cheney.

It will be interesting to watch as Libby's trail, and any other subsequent indictments either of Cheney or Rove, pull the curtain back on this administration's hawkish ideologues, internal disputes between the Dep. of Defense and State, or between the CIA and the Vice President's office. This could be huge.

Take Sahil's main paragraph:

Harvard has always attempted to exemplify the ideals of a society at a given period and recruiting is just another expression of this. We are, after all, not the University of Chicago, who have defined excellence as academic achievement and correspondingly produced intellectuals, regardless of society’s valuation for them. Harvard is instead in the business of producing heroes, living ideals of society’s idea of excellence. Were American society to idealize bookish grad students, Harvard would churn them out in droves. Instead, we like our grads competitive, young, and wealthy. And so, where corporate recruiting caters to this societal idealization, Harvard fulfills it, because that is what Harvard does.

I think he's quite right. Unlike University of Chicago that has created a culture that is specific in the kind of education that it endorses, specific in the culture that it creates and the students it believes are valuable, Harvard is neutral on the question, allowing recruiters and culture to seep in and reflect, to a large extent, the dominant values of our time: money and status. As Sahil later points out:

What I am suggesting is that the majority of Harvard’s organization kids believe in excellence, but not much else. We have taken on the standards of other people not because we found them good and noble, but because we profited for them.

So, while I disagree with his later assertion that it is somehow futile to try to change oneself considering this as our context, he is quite lucid about what Harvard is about, and why Harvard students have the tendencies that we do. Strangely though, Henry's column hits almost exactly the same note:

Most of us simply go with the flow—abdicating control of our lives to the conventional prestige we pursue and to the technology that effectively keeps us too distracted to ask the uncomfortable questions about where we are really going and why. Between our work-hard/party-hard lifestyle, any time or energy for actual solitary reflection is lost—as is any moment for original thought and conscious direction of purpose.

And thus many of us unsurprisingly head to posh post-graduation destinations. We are so busy thinking about the micro rather than the macro that we get to senior year without a clear purpose of why we are here and who we want to be. While some of us mindlessly pursue the status symbols, the more passive amongst us ambivalently follow along, soothed by the potential for easy money and the fact that “everyone is doing it.” Trained to be technicians–-people who think very creatively, but within specific parameters—we are content to sell off our brainpower to corporations, political parties, and law firms. Plus, between the money the firms will offer and the hours they will demand from us, we will continue to be able to live in secure comfort—still lacking the time to question ultimately what we are doing with our lives.

While Sahil sees the same thing as a fatalistic reality, Henry has an optimism (or at least glimer of hope) that some will choose to change this culture, that we can acknowledge that there is something wrong with ourselves and Harvard through introspection and a little courage.

Still, when taken together, the two pieces paint a pretty depressing picture of the Harvard student. I'm not sure I agree with the writers that we are so uniform, that we are, in fact, of one type, but both certainly seem to be pointing out serious things about our dominant culture. And I don’t think, as some might, that taking the "well-trodden routes," as Henry calls them, is such an anomaly. I would guess that few in the world are true adventurers, are truly brave enough to wade into the unknown, truly believe that we as individuals can be radically different. That is, after all, why we so often celebrate those people-the revolutionaries, the innovators, the avant-garde. They are radical because they are rare.

But it is true, I think, that we are living in a moment of dramatic and sad conformity to a culture obsessed with money and status, raised by parents who learned to be politically fatalistic through failure, in a country where the state seems to continually slide away from reality and relevance. It is unsurprising, then, that many people approach this world, uncomfortable with what they see, and seek personal comfort over public good. It is unsurprising that there are few around us brave enough to be revolutionaries, innovators or avant-garde. The questions that naturally arises out of both columns, then, are: how long can our society trod this path before it implodes on itself? How long can money and status be the fuel for the American way of life before all else- a sense of meaning, of community, of morality- is lost? And, can Harvard possibly produce people who have the courage to be different enough to do something about it?

From Steve Clemens via Daily Kos:

First of all, this means that Vice President Cheney has known all along that he was Scooter Libby's source -- and whether Libby had license from him or not to try and slaughter the reputation of Joe Wilson -- CHENEY KNEW.

The entire charade of President Bush stating that he wanted to get to the bottom of who leaked Plame's name -- and who was involved -- is no longer believable at any level. Cheney would not have failed to disclose this to Bush, and Bush played along as if none of his staff were involved. They confessed nothing -- accepted no responsibilty -- until forced by Fitzgerald.

So, while we will see whether or not there was a full blown cover up or obstruction of justice, the fact that the Vice President knew things that apparently were not, let's say, actively share, points to a guilty conscience. Also, has anyone noticed that the leaks from "lawyers surrounding the case" have increasingly pointed toward the Vice President's office? And, that there were really no such leaks until recently? Is Patrick Fitzgerald trying to soften the ground for a veep indictment? Questions are fun, but when the heck are we going to have some answers!?

This is not to say that the piece wasn’t valuable. It still points to what is fundamentally an unmeritocratic system of privilege, reveals aspects of superficiality in our entire community that are uncomfortable but important for us to see, and enlightens us as to what goes on behind doors that seem important partially because they are closed. But the piece should have gone to the general, recognizing that the Isis is fundamentally a socialite drinking club for women without serious class or race privileges (so far as I know) and without a building. Its impact on our community is somewhat limited, but it exemplifies tendencies and systems that are not.

The staff ed, representing the official position of the Crimson, understood this and articulated it very well:

In short, the Isis punch book has simply confirmed what we already knew about the unfortunate nature of Harvard’s elite social scene. It is certainly regrettable that the current Isis punch members are serving as the casualties of that which is endemic to the final club scene at large. But this tangible piece of snootiness serves as a reminder that these clubs institutionalize a brand of distinction that is altogether unimpressive.

The opinion piece gets what the news piece didn’t: the Isis is the sidekick, the culture and more powerful institutions are the real bullies. In the end, the Crimson was right to move on the story and expose a secretive process that affects people's every day lives. That is, whether we like it or not, what it is a newspaper's job to do. If the truth of the situation hurts members of the Isis, that says more to me about a problem with the truth than the people who expose it. It’s unfortunate, though, that the news piece had to focus on that smaller insight when I could have done something infinitely more valuable by making the conceptual step exemplified so easily in the staff ed. Hopefully, however, by reading the staff ed first, people will make that jump on their own while reading the news piece.

The 1960s was also the heyday of the American Civil Rights Movement that brought to prominence such internationally recognized figures as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton. Each of these figures met violent ends as they were murdered in Memphis, Harlem, and Oakland, respectively. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) hand in these deaths has always been a topic of debate due to the established existence of their Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) that sought to systematically disrupt and disband each of the organizations in which these figures operated. One of the chief criticisms levied at the SCLC, NAACP, and other more mainstream Black civil rights organizations in general and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement specifically was that their gains were more tangible to the Black middle-class of America than to the poor majority of Black Americans. Problems with just political representation, public education, and the paucity of quality employment coupled with the increased circulation of diverse drugs in America’s urban areas pushed many young Blacks into the drug trade. It is a business that anyone at any age can enter, no licensing or official documentation is required, and enormous financial benefits can be reaped in a comparatively short amount of time. When shone in the light of a labor relative to capital relationship, in a society where the average inner-city minority in the workforce was making only a few hundred dollars a week at their 9 a.m.-5 p.m. job, who would not want to make hundreds or even thousands of dollars a day selling drugs?

Since White flight and the creation of the predominantly Black, inner-city "ghettoes" of America, the real-life situations presented to young Blacks have been anything but positively comparable to their more socio-economically blessed, predominantly White counterparts. Basic things such as a “good” education, health care coverage, and adequate housing are taken for granted by many of America’s more privileged racial and economic groups. These things are conspicuously absent in most inner-city areas of the country today and their existence or absence relies largely on the abundance or paucity of a community and family’s funds. The importance of financial capital in attaining these things leads to people in inner-city areas seeking financial capital through any means necessary. For these individuals, the most immediate and lucrative medium through which they can amass financial capital is through the drug trade.

The drug trade is the only multibillion dollar business largely conducted in poor, inner-city American neighborhoods. Think about it. Entering this particular vocation requires no daily commute, no documents validating an individual for work—including a college degree or high school diploma—and no prior experience. These first two necessities may be interpreted in a business frame of thinking as a lack of venture capital that is necessary to enter a business enterprise since both require some sort monetary input. Young, Blacks in poor, inner-city areas possess some of the most intense and innate entrepreneurial instinct to be found anywhere in the general population as individuals such as Dame Dash, Master P, and others with their (largely successful) myriad companies selling everything from music to liquor to car rims can attest to. Becoming a doctor, lawyer, or other highly esteemed professional requires an immense amount of financial and personal commitment. In the example of a doctor, four years of college averaging $25,000 a year in addition to three years of medical school averaging $45,000 a year is a costly and timely sacrifice. Granted, this assumes the highly unlikely prospect that an individual pays for their higher education in its entirety. Nevertheless, this serves to illustrate the point at hand when compared to the fact that selling drugs in inner-city America does not require any money to begin with at all; it is a direct application of the most basic of business practices: supply and demand, product to market, and cultivated physical resources exchanged for financial capital to consumers.

The allure of drug dealing is one too tempting for many racial minorities in inner-city America to turn away from. This sad fact of the matter stems from the aforementioned incentives of immediate monetary gain in addition to the lack of quality health care, education, and other things so common in more affluent neighborhoods. Following this line of thinking, the distribution of drugs is seen as the most lucrative and abrupt means through which to achieve their financial ends. No where else is this as simple as in inner-city America. Whereas more affluent communities are ripe with professionals in medicine, law, politics, business, and a variety of other fields, poor, inner-city areas possess fewer prestigious professionals or even people gainfully employed and not living paycheck to paycheck. Role models in suburban communities abound as young people are engineered for success, expected and continuously prepared to attend college since birth, and taught to strive for achievements, goals, and wealth above and beyond what their parents attained. On the other hand, inner-city minority youth are not raised to flourish and improve nor do they have many positive role models to strive to emulate; they are only raised to survive.

As was mentioned previously, harsh punitive measures are taken towards drug offenders in certain instances of the law and its application. The common destination of drug dealers throughout the nation is one that has experienced a nearly exponential increase during the past 35 years or so: this destination is, of course, America's jails, prisons, and penitentiaries. In the theories of the architects of America’s penal system, it was meant to act as punishment to civilians who broke the law of the land in addition to a deterrent against future crimes and criminals. Some would argue that this original goal was changed at some point around the late 1960s or early 1970s and the chief goal of the American penal system was then to incarcerate as many Blacks, specifically Black males, as possible as a means of social control post-Jim Crow. I would argue that the penal system has failed miserably at its original goal and should be, at the very least, radically reformed if not abolished. The reasons behind this belief most prominently include the fact that although “cruel and unusual” punishment is illegal in America, the American penal system can adequately be described as cruel although it is sadly not unusual. Additionally, the rehabilitation that criminals are supposed to undergo while incarcerated never occurs. Instead, inmates are forced even deeper into their "criminal mindset" through frequent and explicit exposure to violence; squalid living conditions and subhuman treatment; and little or no access to educational, psychological, and vocational rehabilitative programs.

There are so many forces pushing young Blacks in inner-city America to sell drugs that few can blame them for using their means to attain what American society has deemed and lauded as so important: money. Yes, selling drugs is illegal according to American law. Yes, selling drugs is regarded as immoral according to American society. Yes, selling drugs is only a short-term path to success according to the American dream. Nevertheless, these reflective viewpoints are not what inner-city Blacks immediately take into consideration when choosing to enter the illicit drug trade. Their immediate concerns are rising out of their current social and economic situation in the hopes of living a “Scarfacesque” lifestyle replete with money, a mansion, and all the social power, political influence, and economic security that they have never enjoyed. Black people sell drugs to make the money to obtain physical necessities and luxuries for themselves and their families that they do not have and no legislator, police officer, or warden is going to stop them.

Here's an excerpt (transcript here):

Craig Carton: I'm using Jun Choi [said in fast-paced, high-pitched, squeaky voice] as an example of a larger problem.
Ray Rossi: and you know.
Carton: We're forgetting the fact that we're Americans.
Rossi: You know that he's going to get the. whatever that vote is
Carton: And here's the bottom line... no specific minority group or foreign group should ever ever dictate the outcome of an American election. I don't care if the Chinese population in Edison has quadrupled in the last year, Chinese should never dictate the outcome of an election, Americans should.

An apology was slow in emerging after this incident, in spite of the outcry from Asian Americans, and the radio station defended the skit as being just a joke. Whether it's useful to compare experiences is another issue, but I definitely think there are insidious attitudes about what it's more acceptable to make fun of that perpetuate discrimination.

On the other hand, sometimes things really are just funny. Like Russell Peters (I can't find the full video...), whose jokes are really largely racial-stereotype-based, but I find him really amusing. Where's that line drawn? Is it just that it's meant in jest that makes it okay? Thoughts?

Anyhow, in light of the pretty heavy controversy that DormAid was embroiled in (it originally launched itself as DorMaid*, and came under criticism from the Crimson and others for encouraging the already existing gap between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds at Harvard), I would not have expected something quite so potentially controversial from them...

Also, on the DormAid website, under the description of room cleaning I found this curious paragraph:

natural born cleaners
Each cleaning team consists of one or two trained and courteous cleaning professionals. They all have a good history of work in the industry and we have performed all necessary background checks.

...which I dislike, mostly because of the unintentional but definitely present suggestion that these employees are "naturally born" to clean...your room. Not so nice.

*I originally wrote MaidAid, which is incorrect

EDIT: Thanks to my compulsive logging in, I came across the DormAid ad again. Here it is for the sake of completion more than anything:

Guess who's back? You can still smell the cocaine in my clothes,
like Krispy Kreme donuts I was cooking ounces of cocaine,
like Horse Shoes I was distributing these cooked up ounces of cocaine--commonly known as crack,
when it was time to visit the person that gives me the cocaine I had to turn in the drug money and use that to get fronted more cocaine,
it's as if I'm emotional, the way I "hug" (frequently stand on) the street corner where I sell crack,
I'm so emotional, I love my Glock (a type of gun),
cash is the king of the world I dwell in so what is more real?,
I'm all about the money, you can call me a surreptitious killer,
it's a bit hard to be drug free,
when Georgia Power, the company that controls the electric utility in Atlanta, won't give an ignorant person their electrical services free,
I switch means of slyly getting money from people, and I've been doing well ever since,
it's a good thing to tell the truth, friend, it only makes sense.

WHAT!?! Comment, please!

What the Crimson story today failed to note (among many things too long to list in this post), was the fact that most of the audience spent most of his talk holding back laughter and looking at each other with amazed bemusement. Mansfield wasn't just ideologically (i.e. "subjectively") wrong, his understanding of feminist theory was shockingly elementary and the philosophical groundings of his ideas were sketchy at best, nonexistent at worst. And, contrary to the Crimson article's claim that he "felt most comfortable when answering questions from the audience," he spent most of the questioning period on the defensive, uncomfortable and unable to answer even the most fundamental challenges. Instead, he responded by doing one of three things: repeating back a point from his main talk and adding a dismissive attempt at humor, claiming that such situations were "exceptions" that didn't need to be handled in regards to his point, or noting that this was a good question but, while he simply didn't have the time to give it a fair response, to "trust him" because he did, in fact, have a good answer to that point.

We could repeat the argument itself here if someone wanted to, I don't mean to dismiss his ideas off-handedly (although we already have been having this conversation to some extent). But rather than doing so immediately, I wanted to recognize the beauty of the situation and how inspired I was to see a room of brilliant young thinkers, activists and students respond with such confidence and coherence, knowing that his is the way of the past and theirs is the way of the future.

I have spent a lot of time at Harvard observing different communities. Until AAWA began last spring, I was not an active member of any Asian/Asian-American groups on campus. In that time, I came to feel that the Asian population at Harvard, though it is a whopping 16-19% per class, is incredibly fragmented. Though it may seem like we all know each other, it's really more like a group of small circles who are only very tangentially related. I personally didn't feel that there was an all-encompassing "Asian" community; there was most certainly a Taiwanese, or a Vietnamese one, but not one that encompassed all of us. And South Asians were very segregated from the East Asian or even Asian American organizations, which I think is more or less unique to Harvard, but may have understandable roots in the fact that, to put it simply, most East Asians can be mistaken for one another but I'll never be mistaken as being from India. I was most struck by the lack of cohesion among Asians at Harvard this last spring during UC elections, when candidates were fighting for BSA, BMF, Fuerza endorsements, when Latinos and Blacks at Harvard are each about 10%. No mention was made (or I didn't hear of one) of getting Asian American endorsement. Unlike other minority groups, the strength does not lie visibly in an umbrella organzation like the BSA (so Asian American Associaion, AAA, for us) but rather in many strong culturally-focused groups. With simply so little unity of the community, less activity/vocalization of Asian Americans in recent years, and the tendency of Asian Americans to be a more apathetic and very personal goal-oriented group who might participate less in voting, it made sense that the "Asian" vote, or the "Asian" endorsement wasn't worth it. (I'm going to refer to all Asians at Harvard as Asian Americans, becuase I believe that though I was born in Taiwan and lived there for a significant part of my life, I will likely live and work and have a family in the West, as is likely the case for most Asians at Harvard, and thus it seems to make sense that we are really Asian American, or will be perceived as such).

The lack of cohesion is an understandable phenomenon. As a very immigrant/first/second-generation-heavy population, ties to cultures and home countries are very strong. Most Asians at Harvard don't identify as "Asian-American" but rather as Taiwanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese... and in general I think that Asian cultures are very nationalistic, and take international beef very seriously and personally. Last year there was a little tension when CSA (Chinese Student's Association) wanted to do a dumpling workshop, which TCS (Taiwanese Cultural Society) traditionally does. Dumplings are both Chinese and Taiwanese (and in various other forms, Japanese and Korean...) but the problem is that the two have a very similar membership demographic, and share similar cultures, but with the very large dividing force of political tension. In addition, there is no real "Asian American" identity that contributes to the lack of cohesion or sense of unity; it is even more essential, then, that we create one ourselves before the one that has been imposed upon us by external views becomes an impossibly removed reality that is yet impossible to remove.

This is why AAWA was begun. Cat, Meg & I believe that though we may identify first and foremost with our culture and ethnicity and not as Asian-Americans (and thus may be active in a cultural organization instead of a politically active on such as AAA), we do identify strongly as women. In the belief that uniting Asian American women in our shared and unique experience as Asian American women, or Asian women in the west, we can take a step towards bridging the fragmentation and create a community that is Asian American, supportive, involved and aware.

A cohesive community of Asian Americans is essential. While there are entire countries full of people who perpetuate their own cultures and concern themselves with their politics along with many Asians in America who do the same, who's advocating for Asian Americans and speaking out about Asian American issues? That is our responsibility, and one of the reasons why AAA exists and why AAWA was created. I think the comments on my last post highlight these big questions: what are Asian American issues? Are there any, given the apparent success of Asian Americans? The prevalence of these kinds of questions is the very reason why I believe that organizations such as AAA and AAWA are different from cultural or social organizations and why they are so essential. Particuarly at an institution as powerful and as privileged as Harvard, it is imperative that we, as Asian Americans at Harvard, educate ourselves about the greater community of which we are a part but are not representative of, so we may in turn increase awareness in those who are not directly involved.

It is always a dangerous thing to judge by appearances only, and this is even more significant when it comes to a population such as Asian Americans that is loaded with stereotypes, stigma and the myth of the model minority (which Professor Vivian S. Louie has written about). The 19% of Harvard that is labeled "Asian American" is far from representative of Asian Americans in the US, not only in that nationally, Asian Americans are only 4%, but most significantly in that Asian Americans at Harvard are overwhelmingly East Asian, and not representative of the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity that really exists. Asian Americans are not a homogenous group, but are too often treated as such. While most people view Asian Americans as the non-minority because of how well Asian Americans seem to be doing as far as enrollment in higher education goes for example, significant proportions of Asian Americans in the US are doing very, very poorly. Populations from in particular Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, but also poor immigrants from China etc. actually have higher rates of dropping out than African-Americans, who are traditionally viewed as a more "at-risk" population. But because the most often seen face of the community is the successful one, those who fight to live on the poverty line, and those who never make it through highschool are forgotten and written off because of their more successful, more affluent counterparts, who are entirely different from them.

So in response to the suggestion made by a commenter on my last post, yes, it may be more difficult for people at Harvard, especially with their perception of Asian Americans in the US as the unrepresentative Asian American population seen here at Harvard, to see Asian American issues as newsworthy because it seems unlikely serious repression or oppression would happen to such a "dominant" minority. But it is because of this very fact that these issues seem unnewsworthy that makes it all the more important to talk about them; if appearances were consistent with the truth, then there would be no issues. But the fact is that there is a lot about Asian Americans that is never spoken of, and because of strong lingering nationalistic views, has fewer activists to give voice to those who can't be heard.

My thoughtful commenter also wrote:

In fact, I'll even hide behind my anonymity and ask a more provocative question: Because Asian-Americans have been among the most successful minority groups to reach the upper echelons of American society, should we give their claims of oppression less weight?

Though understandable, it's very dangerous to belittle the "meaningfulness" of certain forms of oppression on the basis of appearances, especially since Asian Americans are a such a mis-stereotyped group. Moreover, repression does not necessarily involve one huge population oppressing fewer people, or one race oppressing another. It can happen within racial lines, and regardless of the size of the populations involved, and it can happen to a "successful" population, in a non-traditional but just as serious way.

As for proof of "systematic oppression of Asian Americans on campus," I don't have any. Because I never claimed that systematic oppression of Asian Americans on campus exists; in fact, the kinds of subtle repression or suppression such as being written off and pigeonholed, or expected to conform to unrealistic standards or stereotypes are not systematic, but subconscious, and likely inadvertent. I see it every time I tell someone I am a premed BioChem concentrator, play the piano and the violin, did ballet, was good at math... Before I can tell them about my passion for poetry and human rights and little kids, I've been written off as an academic, uninteresting, hardcore Asian premed who "sold out" into the sciences, or whose choices have been made by her parents. I see it when a Final club has a party that casually claims to be celebrating one rebel group in Chinese history, but includes Japanese lettering from a memorial for Japanese soldiers that died fighting those Chinese rebels, and the cultural insensitivity or ignorance in both the idea and the careless mixing two very distinct cultures. I see it even when Asian Americans themselves capitalize on the Asian fetish, using it to their advantage in a small situation but simultaneously and unintentionally contributing to its legitimization. It's not systematic oppression; it's widespread ignorance that quietly represses. It's ignorance of these issues that lets people (both Asian and not) think it's okay to make jokes that reaffirm negative stereotypes of Asian Americans. It's ignorance that makes people think that previous silence and the fact that nobody has ever mentioned to them anything about these issues means nothing is wrong and that these issues don't exist. It's ignorance that lets subtle racism perpetuate. It's ignorance that makes it easy to dismiss this kind of "oppression" as not oppression, when it is simply different from the kind of oppression we are so familiar with, one that involves black and white. It's ignorance that allows these issues and these ideas that are so quiet but so pervasive to to creep into even the most educated and thoughtful of minds. But it is also dialogue that allows this ignorance to be erased, that allows these issues to be aired, to be considered, to be addressed, and to one day, be resolved.

(note: please forgive the assumption of heterosexuality in this thought, I am commenting on one aspect and would be thrilled to be enlightened as to how these types of issues affect queer people)

I know a lot of men who believe that they have progressive, liberal views of women. They go out of their way to counteract the common objectification of women, they are political feminists who believe that women should have an equal role in all facets of public life, they even support feminist activism. But not one of them, that I know of, is willing to carry this principle into their personal lives. Not one of them has ever expressed to me the belief that if women are ever going to be able to truly have an equal role in the public, men have to have an equal role in the private.

It is, after all, a zero-sum game. If women are expected to be responsible for children and the home, they will either have to give up their other roles or do two jobs at once. That much the discussion has already made clear. But that is an IF. If men shared these responsibilities of the "private sphere", women would be more able to share the responsibilities of the "public sphere." Men, however, are almost uniformly not so inclined. The only other option that removes this zero-sum aspect is if we outsource child-raising and running a home to professionals, something that we've partially done with daycare and housekeepers. However, this is still only a partial outsourcing, and comes with a price tag not all can afford. It also has pros and cons of its own.

Now, I'm fairly used to students at Harvard claiming publicly progressive beliefs and making personal regressive decisions. However, if we men really do claim to believe in equality of opportunity for the sexes, if we believe that our wives should have the opportunity to be just as publicly accomplished as we are if they so choose, it's time for us to start asking ourselves: how will we balance a career and a family?

TIME Magazine's interview before the event with Louis Farrakhan was a blatant display of media bias. The interviewer proceeded to ask him a number of controversial questions in succession most likely in hopes of inspiring opposition to whatever he would say from some sector of the population. These ranged from asking Farrakhan whether or not he agreed with Kanye West's statement about Bush not caring about Black people to his role as a Muslim leader in standing up to terrorists who manipulate Islamic teachings for political gain.

CNN's coverage was cursory at best and dismissive at worst spending only a fraction of the piece discussing actual occurrences during the event.

The Boston Globe's coverage of the event painted it in more glowing terms and included information about tangible steps for change that the event inspired. There is to be a public policy group made of "specialists" who will also collaborate on authoring a book titled "The Black Agenda" that is, well, self-explanatory. Farrakhan is from Boston (and attended the prestigious Boston Latin exam school, although there are conflicting reports of whether he graduated or dropped out) so the hometown media love was there.

The Washington Post published a number of articles on the event seeing as how it took place on their home turf. These articles largely highlighted the importance of positive action and communitiy change over raw numbers of attendees as being the focus of many leaders at the march. Thankfully, there were NO ARRESTS and all police did was "give out information and directions". THAT'S wassup. There's also a good Op-Ed by Colbert King that deserves a read.

Read and give me your thoughts on the betterment of the global or national underclass. What is the road to success? Must it be through political inclusion and the legislative process? Or do desperate times call for desperate measures? I'd love to hear from some people who attended the BSA's (Black Student Association's) recent discussion on these issues.

The problem is, Hemel writing this piece violates the Crimson's own conflict of interest policies. News editors are not allowed to editorialize on, or often times even vote in staff decisions on, their news subjects. This is both to maintain a professional news relationship with the subject and with the reader. How will Summers react next time Hemel comes in to do an interview? Will Summers talk to him? Will readers be able to trust Hemel's reporting?

It's an interesting problem for another reason, however. Embarrassing as it will be for the Ed Board and those higher-ups to violate their own C.O.I. policies, it also raises a legitimate question about subjectivity and objectivity in the media. The American media today, maybe now more than ever (although what the hell do I know, I'm 22?), seems to be struggling to figure out what objectivity is. Consider the Valerie Plame case and the stuggles of the New York Times (a newspaper the Crimson loves to consider itself a kind of farm team for). Watch this video clip from CNN about how the NYTs struggled to maintain good reporting while dealing with the legal and loyalty issues of having a controversial reporter in jail for defending a White House source (or two). If they struggled to maintain any level of reporting, what happens to the Crimson when conflicts of interest are everywhere for them because this is a small community of friends, lovers and enemies. What would have happened if there had been no other newspaper to pick up the NYTs slack when they abdicated their journalistic role on this case? Welcome to the Harvard media monopoly.