Dan Fishback: The difference 13 years makes

Walking along an endless row of gay coffeehouses in New York City, I tried to start writing this week's column in my head. I came here to meet Darren Rosenblum, The Daily Pennsylvanian's first openly gay columnist, and, after our conversation, I wanted to write about it. But the story seemed silly without having actually read any of his columns, so I figured I'd raid the DP archive for some quotes.

But I've just gotten back to Philly, and, sitting in the DP office, flipping through the book marked "1989," I realize that quotes aren't the half of it. I start by hunting exclusively for Darren's columns, but more and more headlines gradually catch my eye. "Students pull off diversity panel." "Protestors graffiti anti-rape slogans across campus." "Black students begin yearbook because of 'underrepresentation.'" The list goes on and on.

Practically every day, the DP offered news on minority issues. And practically every week, it ran stories of student activism. "Four U. students arrested at New Jersey protest." "Black students to rally against campus racism." "Activists rally for more support of the homeless."

At first this got me thinking about the current protests against the DP, and student efforts to increase minority representation in these pages. But, after absorbing more and more of this archive, I came to realize that, even if the DP did pay more attention to minority issues, it still wouldn't even resemble 1989. Thirteen years after Darren wrote his biweekly "Out and Out," 13 years after he could advocate violent revolution against white heterosexual men and still seemingly blend into the fabric of the time, 13 years after students staged a hunger strike to support diversity education classes, our campus has stopped vibrating.

As I flip through those pages, I don't know whether to drool or heave a sigh of relief. On the one hand, it looks so thrilling -- to be with people who are not only like-minded, but loudly like-minded -- people who are willing to get arrested to stop American imperialism, people who stage street theater to advocate curriculum change, people who are willing to make their beliefs entirely public and entirely unavoidable.

On the other hand, it looks petrifying -- to live in a time when people burn crosses on campus, when the chairperson of the United Minority Council hears, "We're going to lynch you, you nigger shit" on his answering machine, when Penn's one gay columnist, after writing only three pieces, receives 16 harassing phone calls.

But must it take obscene intolerance to motivate energetic political activity, or at least widespread discussion? Must problems be so blunt for a student population to get worked up? Why can't we muster the same enthusiasm about the more complex campus conflicts -- the culture of alcohol abuse, the culture of rape, the confounding tension between racial integration and racial unity?

Because it's boring? Maybe for some people. Mostly, I think it's just too unfathomable. People run screaming from complicated problems out of semi-understandable human laziness.

But such laziness is just as deadly now as it was in 1989. We're essentially dealing with the same problems and problems never really get solved -- they just get harder. No one won the culture wars of the late '80s and early '90s -- they just came to civil compromises. And we, like every generation before us, are the products and executors of those compromises.

It's a daunting job, but if we don't all admit to our legacy and accept the torch from previous student generations -- if we don't seriously question and scrutinize the power dynamics around us -- then things will regress. Gains will be lost, compromises undone. Burning crosses will reappear and the next gay columnist might have more crap to deal with than the petty trespasses levied against me.

But a call to consciousness is not new. On March 15, 1989, in the middle of a semester that, from the looks of this archive, was a hotbed of protest, a headline reads, "[Civil rights activist Julian] Bond urges increased activism, criticizes apathy among youths."

At his talk, Bond "said that many Americans treat the civil rights movement as nothing more than a 'spectator sport.'"

Perhaps he'd rather them treat social justice as a life mission. In 2002, it looks more like a frowned-upon hobby and I'd frankly be satisfied with spectator sports. It would at least mean action.

In the meantime, Darren Rosenblum no longer suggests violent revolution. He's working for positive change within the system as a lawyer. When we talked, he suggested that he had gotten more conservative since college. After looking at this archive, I'd say that college got more conservative.

Dan Fishback is a junior American Identities major from Olney, Md.

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