| No Place Like
Home: A Review of the GLCA Student of Color Conference
By Mary Annaïse Heglar
It doesn’t look like a very long way on a map, but Greencastle,
Indiana and Oberlin, Ohio are worlds apart. I, and eight other students,
found that out immediately when we stepped out of our vans for the annual
Great Lakes College Association’s (GLCA) Student of Color Conference
at DePauw University on October 7, 2005.
To be fair, it was a long drive, but that did nothing whatever to prepare
us for the great (and grave) distance we had come from Oberlin and its
independent-thought-nurturing atmosphere. It took us no time to see
through the conference’s title: “Answering the Call: Multicultural
Student Leadership and Social Justice Activism.”
Here, “multicultural” and “of color” were synonymous
with “African American.” Leadership in the People of Color
community was almost exclusively translated to historically black Greek
letter organizations. Whereas Oberlin students, however arrogant or
naïve the statement may be, at least entertain the notion of changing
the world, these students were, by and large, trying to strengthen their
resumés.
Let us start from the beginning.
The moment that I and most of the other Obies got our paws on the schedule
of events, we noticed a gap: there was a loud absence of Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer (LGBTQ) issues. Thus, several Obies decided
to organize a caucus discussing these issues.
I, especially, felt extremely awkward at DePauw. On the surface, I was
the student to whom the conference was catered. I am a black American
and a member of the oldest black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority,
Inc. However, I have never been one to be satisfied with the surface.
While I am proud of my organization and firmly believe in its power,
my reasons for joining go far beyond any obsession with pink and green
or to network with or be accepted by other members: I wanted to help
wield my organization into the great tool that I know it can be. Therefore,
I could not help feeling out of place amongst these fellow “Greeks”
who, I strongly suspected, did not have the same social/political convictions.
Most importantly, though, I believe it is crucial to treat everyone’s
struggle with the same respect as your own, so I felt the gaps and contradictions
in the conference as keenly as anyone else.
The first night of the conference featured a lecture by Nikki Giovanni
and a spoken word performance by Asian American artist Kelly Tsai.
I have to give GLCA its credit in that it gave me an opportunity that
I have only dreamed of: I met Nikki Giovanni. This is not the time to
go into my personal jubilation at actually shaking hands with this tiny
woman who has influenced and inspired me to no small degree, so I will
leave it at that. I will, however, talk about how disgusted I was with
DePauw’s reception. For the dinner and lecture with Giovanni,
none of the senior administrators of DePauw were present—not the
president, nor the vice-president, and only one dean. The auditorium
had far too loud of an echo for my liking. And it was not because of
the small amount of black students on DePauw’s campus; you would
not have believed the number of black students at the Greek party later
that night.
Nikki gave a characteristically provocative lecture that night, but
I think that if that same lecture had been given at Oberlin, it would
have been forced into a discussion. Obies, whether we know it or not,
are responsible for about 60% of our education because our nature forces
us to ask questions. We would not have allowed Nikki to leave us without
picking her brain.
As for Kelly Tsai’s spoken word performance…. Let me first
say that whoever planned this event should have had better sense or
more respect than to schedule it in an open bar on a Friday night. The
majority of audience was not there for Tsai and had had enough alcohol
to be completely oblivious that there was a performance at all. The
portion that I was able to hear, though, I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought
that Tsai was at once eloquent and intriguing. I just hope that no one
thought that bringing this Asian American artist was compensation for
ignoring the rest of the non-black community of color.
The next morning opened with a panel of volunteering students from different
colleges speaking of the political climates at their various campuses.
Oberlin was represented, and I must say that it was represented well,
by Ronnie Goines, a senior.
Following that panel, participants had a choice between several different
hour-long sessions. We then moved on to lunch and had two other hour-long
sessions of our choosing before the closing address at 4:00 in the afternoon.
One of these hour-long sessions I spent nearly biting my tongue in half
as I listened to an excruciatingly boring lecture on lynching in America.
For one thing, this man believed that lynching was a thing of the past.
I was amazed that he could make lynching boring! And I could not figure
out, for the life of me, what this lecture (since he believed that lynchings
were no more than an interesting chapter of history) had to do with
current issues for college student leaders.
Right before the last speaker for the day, the three Oberlin students
held their caucus. Since it was but shortly added to the itinerary for
the day, many people did not know exactly what was going on in the room
and a good number came in by mistake. Upon finding out the topic, they
got out with the quickness. I went out to the hallway to go to the bathroom
before it got started and saw people’s eyes almost exploding when
they read the sign outside of the door.
In the end, I think that I and my fellow Oberlin students learned a
lot that weekend. For one thing, we learned to appreciate Oberlin more.
While I do not think that any of us returned with complacency for Oberlin’s
policies, which certainly need improvement, we now know to be more cautious
and specific when we criticize Oberlin off campus so that we do not
give the impression that Oberlin is as bad as the vast majority of the
other schools in the GLCA, or the nation for that matter.
Most importantly, we saw at least some of the obstacles we will face
when we leave Oberlin College.
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