Conor Daly: A divisive performance

Up until Tuesday of this week, I truly had no intention of wasting -- and I mean wasting -- any space on this page to address Carlos Gomez's "performance" last week at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast. After reading the initial news story printed in this newspaper, I felt confident that, by today, discourse about his comments, his diction and tone that day would have been dominated by criticism because of his gross misrepresentation of facts, despicable use of incendiary hate speech and opportunistic use of an occasion designed to unify in order to be divisive. Unfortunately, although much ink has been used to comment on the incident, most of it has been disturbingly spent practically honoring him as a student worthy of kudos for displaying a level of activism to which the rest of us should aspire. Drew Armstrong did come close to deriding him, noting that his comments were "incorrect and flawed," but ultimately saluted him for inspiring controversy, thereby putting some "spark" back into an event which he viewed as having become a love-fest in recent years. Both Armstrong and Gomez would likely agree that controversy can catalyze calls for change into action. However, such an occurrence only materializes if it is the right brand of controversy, the kind engendered by shocking yet well-researched, intelligent and clearly articulated positions. Gomez's goal of inspiring the Penn community to take up his cause will likely fail because his "performance" had just one of those qualities: shocking. His comments lacked a tone of intellectualism and showed a tremendous lack of respect for President Rodin, who he viewed as his opponent on these issues. He used hyperbole to unfairly incite anger in an attempt to bring allies to his cause under false pretenses. In doing so, he obscured the few valid concerns he expressed about the pending war with Iraq and the welfare of West Philadelphia residents and created an environment of negativity and skepticism, which has so far prevented his goal of "getting people to care" about those issues from coming to fruition. Gomez partially obscured his positions by misrepresenting Penn's actions in dealing with the West Philadelphia community since the 1960s. He apparently believes that President Rodin "has been at the forefront of a war waged against the people of West Philadelphia," beginning with the demise of the Black Bottom neighborhood in 1966 -- when she had just graduated from Penn. Since Rodin became president in 1994, Penn has invested millions of dollars in community partnerships in order to demonstrate that the University desires to be a helpful part of the community rather than an encroaching enemy. The University has for many years prioritized partnerships with West Philadelphia schools, such as Wilson and Bryant elementary schools, as well as subsidized health screening, education and referral programs. I could also go on and on about the efforts of the University City District, whose accomplishments were noted in an article in this newspaper this week and the jobs that Penn has created, as well as the efforts of the Center for Community Partnerships. Now does this really sound like President Rodin is waging a war? What it sounds like is President Rodin having a heavy heart about the injustices of the past and trying to erase the Black Bottom legacy through good works, a fact that obviously escaped Gomez. But hey, the controversy that swirls around Gomez isn't all due to factual misrepresentations and hyperbole -- there was also his use of hate speech. Apparently, calling a Jewish person a "Nazi" is acceptable and does not warrant more severe condemnation than the initial chastising. People are quick to forget an incident that came to be called "The Water Buffalo Incident" that occurred at this University in 1992 in which Penn reacted very differently to the use of hate speech. This campus was infuriated after a resident of a high rise called a group of black women "water buffaloes" as they walked to DuBois College House. Gomez similarly used hate speech and did it purposefully, but no similar outcry has emerged. I hope that due to the lack of open condemnation of Gomez's diction, we are not meant to think that the use of the word "Nazi" is acceptable in the manner in which he used it. I imagine that when President Rodin heard her name attached to the slur, she felt a lot like that group of women walking toward DuBois some years ago. Without discourse vilifying Gomez for his actions, we are left to believe that those who shout the loudest and speak the nastiest deserve our accolades for simply creating controversy. Like many others who have read in disbelief the recent coverage of this incident, I am not persuaded by that conclusion. By expressing his views in the manner he did, Gomez brought no one to his cause and most likely alienated a great deal of those whom, absent his hurtful and inaccurate rhetoric, probably would have "cared" about his causes enough to take action -- an outcome he greatly desired. Conor Daly is a senior Political Science major from Boxford, Mass.

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