“…[A] concerted, sustained, and in some ways accelerating effort has gone into making Indians unreal. It is thus of obvious importance that the American public begin to think about the implications of such things the next time they witness a gaggle of face-painted and war-bonneted buffoons doing the ‘Tomahawk Chop’ at a baseball or football game.
It is necessary that they think about the implications of the grade-school teacher adorning their child in turkey feathers to commemorate Thanksgiving.
Think about the significance of John Wayne or Charleston Heston killing a dozen ‘savages’ with a single bullet the next time a western comes on TV. Think about why Land-o-Lakes finds it appropriate to market its butter with the stereotyped image of an ‘Indian princess’ on the wrapper. Think about what it means when non-lndian academics profess as they often do to ‘know more about Indians than Indians do themselves.'”
-Ward Churchill

Whitman College is called thusly because there’s a large segment of the population that thinks “white people won.”   It’s not called the Institute for the Advancement of Human Freedom and Understanding because that’s not what we do here.   We perpetuate a colonial legacy.

America is an empire and Whitman College educates its citizens.   Our sports teams are the “Missionaries” and our school is named after agents of genocide (or maybe just a male patriarch thereof).   We are faced with a choice as a community: Accept the name “Whitman” and embrace a radical politics that reconfigures our existence in response to the genocidal project that such a name evokes, or change the name.   Right now, all we’ve got is epic failure.

Some violence is probably inevitable, and some is probably okay, but most political problems the campus concerns itself with aren’t even bandaids.

Look: the Whitman family came to this place where we live to teach the savages about Christ. That’s what missionaries do; they teach people how dirty they are, and that there is no alternative besides Western “Civilization.”   This is despicable.   This is hurtful.   This is genocide.

Yes, the option exists of making Whitman an anti-imperial institution, repudiating the Whitman family and dedicating ourselves to challenging violent constructions in the media and in our communities, but I have two parking lots full of proof that most Whitties aren’t ready to accept any life methodology beyond one of immediate pleasure.  Hence, our concern for the seemingly empty “global environment” as if recycling cans and bottles are going to stop global warming.

There’s a bumpersticker that says “If you aren’t pissed off, you aren’t paying attention.”   I know your parents are rich and well-connected and you’re only here because you feel like you should be, or because your parents made you, but being a person means you have an obligation to recognize your privilege.   Being pissed off might be a good start, even if your extra-curricular activities still consist solely of rockclimbing, snowboarding and reading rich peoples’ “classics.”