I am absolutely, utterly appalled that the Pioneer would have the audacity to run the article “Indians take over Bridges’ office.” After all of the intervention our college has had, all of the money it has spent, all of the time and effort the students that actually care about issues of racism and discrimination put forth: the Pio spends its ASWC monies (generated from the fee I can’t afford but paid anyway) on an outright hurtful piece? What was your staff thinking, or was anyone thinking at all?
I understand the purpose was to make fun of Whitman, but not only was it done in a way that hurt a group of innocent bystanders already victims of the institutions that were the target, but it was completely counter-intuitive in that it was doing so in a way even worse than what started the whole process being made fun of. I say it is worse because this article was published in light of the first incident: the first Symposium should have been a wake-up call, but it was not heeded, so the offense this time is magnified exponentially.
And it is more offensive. An increase in the scalping rate with an increase in Native Americans on campus? What, do all Native Americans run around cutting the tops off of people’s heads? No, obviously not, since I’ve never even had a knife of my own (unless you count the family utensils), let alone used one to cut someone’s scalp off.
Yes, I’m Native American. And I’m offended beyond belief as such. Just because there are only a small handful of us on campus doesn’t mean we aren’t capable of being hurt. And I myself am not even going to touch the “gay” comment, but suffice to say it does nothing to help, and in that context, was also highly inappropriate and underscores the insensitivity. It takes the article far beyond tasteless: low blow? This was at the ankles. But the movie being made fun of there was filmed a few miles from my grandfather’s house: I played with the children and grandchildren of some of the Native Americans in it when I visited him once. And I happen to like that movie, so I guess I’m gay, right? No, I am not, actually. I may have many GLBTQ friends, but I myself am not GLBTQ.
As per usual, I digress.
As a student in general, I’m embarrassed and overwhelmingly ashamed and disheartened. If this is what my fellow students are like, I cannot with a clear conscience associate myself with them. Again, after everything that has happened the past two school years on campus, how could anyone on the Pio staff even think that an article like this, even as satire, is remotely permissible? It is NOT.
The sensitivity and self-monitoring we were advised about and consented to (at least tacitly by not objecting) at both Symposia would seem to mean nothing to my fellow students. It was all empty promises and hollow speeches. It’s mortifying, I’m mortified.
Where are your brains, Pio staff? Not just the writers of the article or the editor: all of you? Did any one of you speak up against this article before it was run? I have been told that “many” members of the staff read it before it was published, and that even the potential offensive nature was “brought up.” But the staff pushed that aside and ran with it. Shame on you, on every single person that had a hand in the decision to run the article. You should have known better.
My disappointment with the staff runs deeper now, though. It is a bit after 10 p.m. on the day the deadline for submissions to this spread are due as I write this. Yet the only call for them I know of was my own, made last night on the student listserv.
The senior editors of the Pio promised me they would try to get as many submissions as possible and devote as much space as they could in this issue to the article and reactions to it on top of their own apologies. So why was I the one to advertise that this spread was in the works? Where is your sincerity, then, Pio staff? What are you really trying to do?
Stop back-pedaling. If you want the Pio to be the forum for the discussion, that discussion can’t happen unless people are aware you intend for it. I have a feeling that if there are any other reactions besides my own, the majority come at the personal request of staff members, or are staff members themselves, rather than someone that knew the dialogue was intended to happen and thus took the initiative to write something.
Which leads me to a grievance with my fellow student body as a whole. Silence is the voice of complicity, right? Why was I the first to make their upset known publicly by delivering a speech on the Senate floor (it’s in the minutes, check the Web site)?
Why is it now Tuesday evening, and no one is talking about it or seems to care? Why didn’t I do something immediately, like a listserv e-mail? I was waiting specifically for that reason, to see if anyone else would, for I wanted to hope that maybe my fellow Whitties weren’t as insensitive as this being allowed to happen indicated.
After my speech, a number of people told me they had been offended by the article, too, but there was no indicator put out in the open. More than one person even said something like, “I almost e-mailed the student listserv, but I didn’t.” Almost. Why almost? Shame on you, too.
One final thing that clearly wasn’t considered is the local community. We live in Walla Walla, ladies and gentlemen. That isn’t in England, you know. Any rumination as to how the local Native American population may feel about this piece? You can’t have your cake and eat it too: we can’t claim the Whitman bubble should be popped one moment and then turn it into an impenetrable barrier the next. So the excuse of “The Pio is for students” is not valid. Especially since I sat and listened to the current editors as they tried to get more money for the Pio last year at a Joint Session, for one of their reasons was in-town and off-campus distribution: and I had, on that occasion, fought on their side, by the way. So not only students of Whitman need to be kept in mind, but local residents of Walla Walla and its neighbors.
Whitman’s reputation was put on the line when that article was published, and let us all hope it doesn’t get out in to the community: the damage will be unfixable.
One final note. This has nothing to do with Bridges: it’s the students that are at fault here. This isn’t a “sins of our fathers” type of thing, this is the sins of our cohorts. Own up to it. Do something about it. Redeem yourselves. Everyone.
The Pio staff needs to not only admit they messed up big time, but also adjust their practices accordingly: the internal editorial process needs to change. Because the reasoning they gave me, that the paper is meant to be educative and thus they allow articles that they know will receive a bad response to run so that the writer will “learn” is unethical: it’s like not warning someone crossing the street that a car is coming; and it puts the people in the car at risk, too.
The Pioneer is Whitman’s only paper. As such, the students are a captive audience, which means the standards the paper sets for itself need to be higher. The piece being in the April Fool’s insert doesn’t make it OK. It was still offensive, still hurtful, still tasteless, still inappropriate. But the staff isn’t alone in culpability, for the overall mindset of the student body enabled this behavior.
And Native Americans aren’t the only group at risk: that article being run and the lack of self-initiated public response means every minority group is in danger of being sideswiped like this. So the entire campus needs to wake up and apologize to every African American, Asian, Latino, GLBTQ, obese: I could go on, but you get the point. Or maybe you don’t. And that is my point. Good night, and good luck: we need it.
