A Forum for Intercultural Relationships

Illustration by Shaina Rubin

“Talking about male privilege is just a way to make guys feel guilty.” “Why is she always talking about being a lesbian?” “What’s the point of all these minority history months?” “If you’re at Columbia, you’re not poor.”

How do we engage critically in issues of class, race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, religion, and other identities with which we don’t identify? When choosing where to sit in the dining hall, whom we live with, which groups we join, and what causes we do or don’t adopt, the social forces that shape our social lives are rarely conscious or malicious. However, the consequences of social associations still pervade everyday life. At Columbia, how can a middle- or upper-class student address issues of poverty not only for a cause across the world but also with poor students on campus? How can we engage on the friend-to-friend level and not merely the academic? How do heterosexual allies talk about issues like homophobic graffiti and lack of administrative response when their queer friends are so personally affected? How do white allies address racism in the classroom by fellow students or even professors when students of color in the room are visibly uncomfortable? A look at relationships between different identities falls outside of most current student organizations.

Ally work involves acknowledging social privilege that is attached to one’s position as a part of a majority or an otherwise dominant group and using this privilege to benefit others. White people speak out and act against racism in their daily interactions. Straight people correct homophobic language and actively support equal rights under the law. As students interested in building relationships and engaging in continued critical dialogue to understand the divisions and misunderstandings that shape our campus, we often lack the context in which to have such discussions. The context we lack is intercultural relationships.

Campus social life is defined by student organizations from publications, student councils, and Greek organizations to religious, pre-professional, cultural, and political groups, all of which are often subdivided in various ways. The sheer size of Columbia’s student population, the separation of the affiliated colleges, different funding groups such as the Activities Board at Columbia, Student Governing Board, and Student Government Association, and different advising systems for various groups tend towards competition for resources. As a result, groups and their members are often isolated from each other, interacting only occasionally through financial co-sponsorships of events.

Self-perpetuating social barriers often need organized events that bring people together, but sustained relationships are rare. Recently, the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Hillel organized an Alternative Spring Break trip by sending students from both organizations to New Orleans to rebuild homes. Because of personal relationships formed through regular meetings during the semester prior to the week in New Orleans, open and direct conversations around issues of race and religion were an integral part of the time the group spent together rather than its main purpose.
Through building personal relationships and engaging in continued discussions around race, class, religion, and other identities, the trip is a model of cross-cultural experience that connects different parts of campus. While planned discussions are important to strong relationships in fleshing out complex issues of power and privileges, students need constantly to ask themselves how these working relationships can move beyond the superficially academic.

Often, students opt to ignore moments of intercultural tension in order to avoid discomfort, but in doing so we lose opportunities for understanding and, consequently, friendship. While there is a need to address these conflicts amongst our friends, often these issues prevent friendships in the first place. The focused nature of groups that take on specific identities or issues does provide important opportunities for people to engage in activities not provided elsewhere, but limited time and resources make it hard for groups to mix. Priorities of community service work and intercultural exchange are often the first to go under pressures of school, jobs, and the one or two groups that students have time to attend. Where is there room for discussions of race within feminist discourse, masculinity as shaped by socioeconomic status, and sexuality within religious communities? Without opportunities to explore these issues, the subtleties of intersecting identities are often lost.

Students need opportunities to engage in and facilitate conversations that unpack identities that are both intensely personal and public, but we also we need to establish a shared language by which we can communicate as effectively as possible. Recognizing learning curves, encouraging individuals to take responsibility for challenging themselves, and establishing a culture of assumed goodwill are the foundations for a protocol of communication that can be established in order to avoid distraction from core issues. Respecting Ourselves and Others Through Education (ROOTEd), the student-run facilitation group through the Office of Multicultural Affairs, leads discussions on issues of power and privilege surrounding identities represented on campus. Through April 5, ROOTEd will hold its annual Allies Series, which offers eleven different events about a large range of issues. The series will explore the meaning and enactment of ally work in the context of race, gender, religion, socio-economic status, and sexual orientation as well as the interaction of such identities. Most importantly, we hope to provide opportunities to begin mingling and forming relationships of allies and friends for the future.

The obstacles that prevent communities from coming together at Columbia and Barnard are significant, but so is our ability to overcome them. Efforts to ally ourselves with other people can start out as clumsy and ignorant, but the art of being an ally is a chance to work against ignorance and injustice. Please come and join the conversations.

Vivian Lu is a Columbia College sophomore. They are ROOTEd facilitators. Yocheved Tupper is a Barnard College and Jewish Theological Seminary first-year.