Afternoon highlights of the Power & Privilege Symposium
In emails to The Pioneer, symposium speakers and workshop leaders explained why members of the Whitman community should attend their events.
This issue of The Pioneer came out at noon on Thursday, Feb. 19, halfway through the Power and Privilege Symposium. Given this restriction, here is a preview of some of this afternoon’s highlights:
Deconstructing the Whitman Bubble
1:30-2:30 Reid G02
“It is important to be thinking and talking about Whitman as a part of Walla Walla. As students, we are temporary residents, and a connection to where we live outside of where we study makes our time here meaningful to ourselves and others … Our panel is interesting because it brings together current Whitman students, Whitman graduates who work in Walla Walla and Walla Walla residents who interact with students through their work. This mix of panel members creates an opportunity for a discussion space that is not often present nor imagined.” – Theo Ciszewski
Beyond the Gray: Changing Whitman’s Culture of Sexual Assault:
2:45-3:45 Harper Joy
*Trigger Warning: sexual assault.
“Whitman students should attend our workshop because their voice matters in changing the campus climate surrounding sexual assault … Sexual assault is incredibly complicated with a lot of gray areas … [We] want to work within the Whitman community to find solutions that are specifically molded around our wants and needs.” -Samantha Grainger-Shuba
Hands up Don’t Shoot: Police and Vigilante Violence as an Extension of Old Fashioned Lynching
2:45-3:45 Olin 157
“The shootings of black men in America are not isolated events that happen without purpose. My lecture goes into what I think the purpose of police and vigilante violence is and how it connects to historical race relations.” -Alisha Agard
Compassion in Conflict
2:45-3:45 Maxey 104
“One of the driving tenets of this workshop is that being right is not everything … Whenever we are in conflict, we have to remember that we are in conflict with another human, who probably thinks we are as wrong as we think they are … Those of us preparing this program do not feel that conflict is bad. In fact, we feel that it can be very productive.” -Paul Minor
Why I Do Not March at Protests and Rallies: An Examination of Access and Ability in the Whitman Community
2:45-3:45 Anderson Lounge
“The topic of disability is something that we don’t think about very often on our campus. We often think about disability in terms of physical differences or needs and not so much about invisible disabilities such as chronic or mental illnesses … Developing this workshop challenged us to think about our campus’ accessibility and how different institutions work to create accommodations and support all of their students.” -Joel Ponce
“As the workshop’s title suggests, disability is a topic that often is overlooked on campus. My hope is that the workshop creates a space to reflect on how we define disabilities, how we think about their impacts on day-to-day life, and how we can relate our own understandings or experiences with disability to other identities.” -Morrow Toomey
