Williams College has done some cool stuff in the last 50ish years. We created an Africana concentration, a Latino/a concentration, we let Women go to college here. Women! In College! I’m a woman! And here I am. Freaking Wild!
The progress that we made is portrayed by the multiple classes that explore race theory, feminism, and other radical thoughts like equality and whatever. The beauty of a school that’s mostly not POC, PWC (people without color) if you will, is that classes about the marginalized are not full of people who have experienced said marginalization.
And that brings us to the rare white boy that takes a class about race theory. I decided to ask Brad SillyGoose '22 about why he chose to take a class about race theory.
“I’m Class of ‘22 and I’ve just never really taken a class about stuff like this. I’m an economics major and I just don’t really look at this kind of stuff” SillyGoose said. And this made sense to us at the Haystack because the economy and race never really intersect.
“Intersectionality is a big new word that I’ve been hearing a lot in this class. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about it. It’s like you have one societal problem, right. Let’s use race as an example. And then imagine you are also a woman” he said. I told him I was trying super hard to imagine. “If you have both those problems then like that’s intersectionality and stuff.”
I asked him what else he’s taken away from the class and for him it was pretty straightforward.
“Yeah it’s pretty straightforward. Like I knew things were bad for people but I guess I never really knew how bad you know. So I’m just trying to educate myself and be a person that hears and sees people who experience this kind of stuff. This has really helped me understand my privilege and I hope to really use my shift in perspective to do better” he said, quite seriously.
I asked him what his next steps were.
He said he was going to Pappa Charlie’s to get an Eggplant Parm before practice. And he had to pick up some beers for his night with his boys.
I did mean his next steps in doing better with privilege and stuff. But SillyGoose was happy and trying. And the bar is at a limbo-world-record kind of low. SillyGoose is doing the most he can do. Be like SillyGoose, white boys, expose yourself to things you aren’t familiar with.
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