Letters to the Editor – May 1

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Author: 

Dear Editor,

TRIGGER WARNING: this letter addresses sexual assault and rape, which could be triggering to survivors and allies.

I address this letter first to gentleman who verbally confronted me after the Founder’s Day dinner and second to the Occidental community as a whole.

At OSAC’s Saturday evening vigil, after your wife took the informational materials on sexual assault issues on campus (which I offered to her after you slapped her hand away), you loudly accused me of not understanding that there are “good people in the administration” here at Oxy. Sir, I am actually well-aware that there are allies and supporters of survivors and OSAC within the administration, and we appreciate them. My peers in OSAC and I have thanked them very much for their continued support, and I understand that they might have to be silent allies by necessity.

You then proceeded to ask me, “How I thought the vigil made [the good people] feel walking through this gauntlet of students?” Sir, a group of silent, candle-holding students holding signs stating “Thank you for wearing ribbons” is a not gauntlet, but rather a dignified demonstration. The vast majority of the dinner attendees understood this and many thanked the students and faculty for their dedicated efforts to end sexual violence on campus. Those attendees and administrators who sneaked off without acknowledging the vigil, I assume, felt ashamed or even guilty.

Sir I am disheartened that you seem primarily concerned with the image of our college, not the well-being of its students. When I, a fellow member of the Occidental community, became visibly upset and started crying, you responded with an acute lack of empathy. Not once did you express concern about the fact that students rape and sexually assault other students, nor did you demonstrate an understanding of why we need change. In order to cultivate a truly equitable and safe culture at Oxy, we must ensure that perpetrators can’t walk free. We need to engage in some serious prevention work and turn our attention to talking about masculinity and power. We have to strive for an environment where students who speak out do not face retaliation.

I am very grateful for the experiences that I’ve had at Oxy. I have been challenged in profound ways by some of the outstanding faculty, staff, and students at this campus. I continue to challenge and fight along with others to make our community safer precisely because I love Occidental.

Attacking the messengers is not a productive use of anyone’s time. Not when systematic changes have yet to be implemented and justice has yet to be reached.

Estrella Lucero


(Junior, Politics)

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Dear Editor,

“Dear Oxy people criticizing the lawsuit. Fuck you plain and simple. I challenge you to take a step back from your own world and really think about what these people have endured. You can spout what you want, but you don’t know the hell that they have been put through. Have you heard of empathy? You should try it!”

What is most intolerable? I’ve been shown on every social media feed imaginable by the Occidental student body that intolerance is that which is most intolerable. The quote above was taken verbatim from the dearoxy tumblr, set up as a forum for sexual misconduct reform (I suppose, anyway, you’ll see in a moment that it’s purpose is somewhat indistinguishable). I’ve taken glances at this tumblr, slathered with messages of hate, of ill-will, of anger, and while there is a frequent presence of thanks, gratitude, and praise, it is the hate that sticks with me. I have watched this semester play out on a political battlefield that causes grinding teeth; everyone is on edge. My response of anxiety is a result of being torn: between supporting the ideology and goals of OSAC, and feeling an intense sense of frustration with those who hatefully lash out, irrationally bullying any who might oppose. OSAC’s fight for the revision of sexual misconduct policy and procedure has brought out the radical extremes that appear concordantly with grassroots movements.

Objectively, there are two explanations: 1) we take sadistic pleasure in eviscerating our political foes on the internet or, just as likely 2) we cannot stand statements with signifiers of privilege, leading us to a pent up frustration that douses targets with academic and/or emotional napalm. Maybe it’s a bit of both. I’ve had moments of pleasure derived from making someone appear foolish on the internet. It might be a simple ‘grammar nazi’ comment, it doesn’t really matter, it’s still sanctimonious.

I don’t care for the argument that claims we’re sacrificing the good reputation of our school by involving outside media outlets; I agree with OSAC’s notion that the school has brought bad press on themselves. I agree there needs to be change. Getting back to objectivity––this many people would not be so ravenously upset with the administration if the existing policies had been sufficient. That part is not difficult. It was difficult to write this letter, however, to put myself in front of any sort of public audience and express a critical opinion that is convoluted with a mixture of support and disdain.

It is the hate of this movement that sticks with me, that still sticks with me. What moved me most was to see messages of unbridled support from professors of this college on dearoxy. Several left grateful messages, commending student efforts to affect positive change in the world, our world, just as they had been teaching us to do. The intellectual foundations of this institution prop up the credibility of our education, our ability to reason, to voice perspective, to achieve goals, to create change. Our professors serve as the overseers for the construction of our own intellectual foundation as an extension of the college itself. Their support means the world to me (and if it’s not clear, I support OSAC, for the record). I have not, however, spoken to or heard from any of the professors regarding the hateful, angry energy surrounding the movement. That I think is most troubling. I have to wonder what they would say. I suppose I wrote this letter to say I think you should wonder too.

John Solowiej

(Junior, ECLS)

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Dear Editor,

I am writing to you today in response to Emma Lodes’ April 24 editorial, “Fayyad exit must not derail Palestine development.” This editorial contains a number of contradictions, errors, and outright ludicrous statements that I feel are my duty to point out. To begin, Ms. Lodes seems to premise her editorial on the belief that the United States has an obligation to concern itself with the welfare of the Palestinian people, while at the same time arguing that the U.S. must not reach “for influence over Palestinian politics.” It seems that in her naiveté the author fails to realize that the donation of hundreds of millions of dollars never occurs without a modicum of political trade, be this explicit or implicit. We should neither fool ourselves nor those to whom we give aid that money has no strings attached. Furthermore, as Ms. Lodes points out, the productivity of the Palestinian government hinges upon its leaders recognizing that in order to benefit from our aid dollars, they must enact reforms that improve the national infrastructure. Indeed, if Fayyad was the only leader ensuring that these reforms took hold, and if the Palestinian Authority is in fact as weak without him as Ms. Lodes seems to believe, then why should we give the Palestinian Authority anything at all? Why should we support an inept and impotent government? The United States does not owe any nation anything, and it especially does not owe money to the anti-Western leaders of Fatah, men who inherited the legacy of its founders, who called for the “eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence” in Article XII of the Fatah constitution (if you don’t believe me, look it up).

Ms. Lodes is quick to point out that “unemployment in the West Bank rose to 19 percent last year,” yet Spanish unemployment just hit a record high 27.2%, and I haven’t heard any calls from the author for us to consider the wellbeing of the Spanish people. I had the fortune of working with a young woman from Italy this past summer. She and her husband just moved back to her parents’ home in New Jersey because in Italy paychecks come about twice a year. We support nations like Spain and Italy because we know that their governments do not depend upon a single individual, and because they provide goods and services that are of use to us. Simply put, we do not pay taxes to prop up weak governments from which we receive no benefit.

Is this a harsh lens through which to examine international relations? You bet, but to do otherwise would be to give in to fiscal irresponsibility. Not to mention that Ms. Lodes’ vision of the U.S. as moral leader (read: checkbook) of the known world has been outdated since we left Vietnam. So what do I propose? If we want to see real peace, let’s tell Abbas that he won’t see a dime of our money until he comes to the negotiating table with zero pre-conditions. Netanyahu is sitting patiently for Abbas’ call, but there is no chance of him picking up the phone until Abbas treats Netanyahu as an equal partner in the process. No preconditions, no nonsense, just two pens and two blank sheets of paper.

Ben Warner

(Sophomore, Politics)

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