2008 Woodie Awards
History repeating itself
Professor Emmett Buell
Issue date: 11/13/07 Section: Forum
- Page 1 of 2 next >
Dear Editor:
Like so many other Denisonians I was troubled, saddened and to a degree heartened by the events of last week.
Strong feelings erupted over words and deeds that in some instances clearly targeted specific individuals or groups with the intent to denigrate and dehumanize, but that in at least one other case were wholly innocent of premeditation or malevolence.
I took heart at times because some aspects of the collective trauma appeared to have been both therapeutic and positive.
Condemnation of evils offensive to almost everyone associated with the college is indeed productive, at least up to a point.
But it is possible to move well beyond that point, which unfortunately happened in every one of the previous episodes that I have witnessed in my long career on this faculty.
The first of these travails in my experience began in the fall of 1969 (my first semester of college teaching) and carried over to nearly all of the spring semester. It started when a white male student shouted a racial obscenity at a black co-ed walking up the front drag.
By the time it finally ended, the presidency of the newly installed Joel Smith had been destroyed, the faculty had split into irreconcilable factions, classes had been disrupted and then halted for a week, numerous acts of physical violence and property damage had been reported (some actually committed), grading standards had collapsed and a big portion of the student body had been traumatized.
Months of fear, rage and disinformation fed the routine displays of savage hatred - for the president and the college-that took so heavy a toll on the collective psyche. Indeed, everyone was so numbed that the May 1970 shootings of students at Kent State caused little more than a hiccup.
Certain ironies of the 1969-70 episode have been repeated in subsequent flare-ups. I shall never forget the opening words of the BSU chief defense minister, who spoke at the first of many emergency meetings of the faculty in 1969-70: "I am here to protest an obscenity you mother f------s!"
Like so many other Denisonians I was troubled, saddened and to a degree heartened by the events of last week.
Strong feelings erupted over words and deeds that in some instances clearly targeted specific individuals or groups with the intent to denigrate and dehumanize, but that in at least one other case were wholly innocent of premeditation or malevolence.
I took heart at times because some aspects of the collective trauma appeared to have been both therapeutic and positive.
Condemnation of evils offensive to almost everyone associated with the college is indeed productive, at least up to a point.
But it is possible to move well beyond that point, which unfortunately happened in every one of the previous episodes that I have witnessed in my long career on this faculty.
The first of these travails in my experience began in the fall of 1969 (my first semester of college teaching) and carried over to nearly all of the spring semester. It started when a white male student shouted a racial obscenity at a black co-ed walking up the front drag.
By the time it finally ended, the presidency of the newly installed Joel Smith had been destroyed, the faculty had split into irreconcilable factions, classes had been disrupted and then halted for a week, numerous acts of physical violence and property damage had been reported (some actually committed), grading standards had collapsed and a big portion of the student body had been traumatized.
Months of fear, rage and disinformation fed the routine displays of savage hatred - for the president and the college-that took so heavy a toll on the collective psyche. Indeed, everyone was so numbed that the May 1970 shootings of students at Kent State caused little more than a hiccup.
Certain ironies of the 1969-70 episode have been repeated in subsequent flare-ups. I shall never forget the opening words of the BSU chief defense minister, who spoke at the first of many emergency meetings of the faculty in 1969-70: "I am here to protest an obscenity you mother f------s!"
Be the first to comment on this story