Author: Yennaedo Balloo
ASOC President Ryan Bowen delivered a controversial orientation speech to the class of 2011 and their families on Saturday, August 25. Rumors spread among Occidental students that the speech, considered extremely radical by people who were in attendance, drew fire from the administration as well as the disdain of several parents.
When asked about rumors that several first-years withdrew from Occidental because of the speech, President Susan Prager’s Executive Assistant Rebecca Stolz assured the Weekly that it wasn’t true. She said a few students withdrew before orientation began, but did so for confidential reasons.
Several parents approached Bowen after his speech, but he said their reactions were positive. “The only people that I spoke to on the day of the speech were parents who told me that it was a very moving presentation,” Bowen said. He heard from students that some faculty onstage looked uncomfortable while he was giving his speech. “Witnesses in the audience had told me that things I had hit on didn’t seem too visibly pleasing to President Prager, Dean Avery and Dean Frank,” Bowen said. “There’s obviously something that struck a chord that audience members saw in their reactions while they were sitting there.”
Bowen said that he heard from Dean of Students Barbara Avery that one African-American family confronted her for Bowen’s claim that the Coons Administration building was named after African-American former President John Slaughter. “The college was so sensitive of a black man here that they named the administrative building after him-Coons,” Bowen said in his speech.
“Nope, just joking, that’s Arthur G. Coons, but sometimes love involves changing the ways we do things around here. I personally haven’t enjoyed the premise of paying my financial aid in a building commonly referred to as ‘Coons.'”
Bowen has not personally seen any negative reactions to his statement. “I believe that if there are people that disagreed with it, they are not confronting me about it,” he said. Because of Bowen’s speech, some students have begun to discuss whether they would want the name of the building changed.
O-Team Leader Jon Wheeler (sophomore) shared his sentiment. “I think that racial jokes are always going to be controversial, and I think that deciding to tell a racial joke at [orientation] was a risk that he probably shouldn’t have taken,” Wheeler said.
Regarding the debatably “radical” aspects of his speech, Bowen said his intention was to remind students of the college’s mission statement and the lack of dedication to it. “My critique of us failing our mission statement and continuing to struggle in finding our identity and still kind of wavering was a direct critique of not just the administration, but of the faculty and student body as well,” he said. “We have a burden upon us that we’re not living up to, something that we’ve pledged we believe in.”
Bowen referred to past acceptance rates of minorities and said he was reminded that Occidental had, at one point, 50 percent students of color enrolled. “We’re now shy of that former percentage, with roughly 39 percent students of color [in the incoming class],” he said.
When asked why he focused on race, Bowen said, “I suppose I could have focused on class to make my points, but I think that the two are linked and somewhat inseparable. I spoke about race because it’s one of the biggest determinants in higher education, the historical exclusion and where we stand today in relation to that.”
Bowen acknowledged there may be elements of the speech that could be shocking, but said his intention was to challenge and encourage members of the community to uphold Oxy’s mission statement and attain what Occidental once had, being “at the forefront of equity . . . within its community [of liberal arts colleges].”
Bowen said that, to him, being ASOC President means he has the responsibility to lead the student body towards fulfilling the College’s mission statement, and that speeches and actions that could be perceived as “radical” or “controversial” may be necessary.
“I believe that racism exists,” Bowen said. “It’s a reality America has its problems with, and Oxy isn’t exempt from them.”
Bowen’s full speech:
“What’s up, I’m Ryan, your student body president. I’m going to talk to you this afternoon about one of my personal favorite topics: Love. Now, I know it may be difficult for many of your parents to believe, but there is a whole lotta love making that goes down in college. Don’t fear, that’s not the kind of love that I speak about today.
Some of the words I use may not fit within what you have, in the past, defined as love, but, being a college setting, I want to encourage you to expand your mind and think critically about what the following entails.
Occidental is what they said it is in your brochures. It is a challenging institution. Oxy will challenge you to think outside of yourself. Thinking outside of ourselves has an enormous impact on our vision of a community. This challenge is significant because part of this community has privilege over other parts. That leads to conflict. First off, I want to make this point to you very clear. I, your student body president, am not asking for you to tolerate each other. In fact I don’t even want you to try to tolerate each other.
The book you were supposed to read this summer, Choosing Civility – the premise was the concept of civility, which in some aspects are good and all, however, I challenge you that there is no need to tolerate oppression masked with good manners.
Many of us have heard the saying that ‘well-behaved women rarely make history.’ Well the same goes for others, as well-behaved latinos and blacks rarely make history, and well-behaved poor people rarely make history, and honestly, well-behaved students over the past century haven’t made history.
Three years ago there was a student movement on campus, it ended right here where you’re sitting in Thorne Hall, where the entire campus came together in a town hall meeting with then president Ted Mitchell to talk how Oxy was failing to uphold its commitment from the mission statement to diversity and fostering an equitable community. You see, to live up to a goal of equity means to provide a supportive space for all students, to seek solutions to historical injustices.
I believe we are still in the same place today, I honestly wouldn’t have run if there had been a significant change. And now, THREE YEARS later, in this same place that we are sitting here today, I am upset. I am upset because administrators, faculty and students around you and before you have not lived up to those goals that we were striving towards.
I could tell you history. But we made history. The things that happened at Oxy that were meaningful to the class of 2004, I don’t know what those are. I just knew we came here to fight for our reason to be here. WE have our history, what history are you going to be a part of here?
There is always justice to be fought for. There is always injustice going on around you, if it’s people being called out for being gay, or lack of access to the disabled. There are hardly any wheelchair ramps at Oxy! Or how about three weeks ago when someone called me a monkey? You see, I know that I’m black. And by now, you know that I’m black as well. But let me tell you something. Some of you may think that having a black man as president shows signs of progress. But please understand that the shallow liberalism within that thought will not save you. The truth is that we are not there yet.
That is not to say that there are not students, faculty and staff passionately working to take us there. Let me tell me about what gives me hope at Oxy.
There is a class here called INTERGROUP DIALOGUE. This past week I went on a retreat with other student leaders where we talked a lot about talking. This happens
a lot at Oxy. We talk.
Now this class is something different. Let me tell you what we talk about. While many of us struggle with effects how I see community, interacts with community, who I am, the person I am, because the class focuses on self-reflection and identity. It formed as, not just changed, but saved my life. The class is called intergroup dialogue. I want to connect it to students and connect it to a vision to reshape the vision of the community. America is a divided country. Occidental College, on many levels, is a divided college. There are areas on this campus that provide a means for students to engage.
The class I talked about gives us a language to speak to the challenge and hurt and difficulty of our past pains, failures and weaknesses, to love each other. This class taught me that love isn’t passive. That love involves conflict, that love demands that we fundamentally re-examine who we are and how we oppress each other with our actions. What community at Oxy means is that white students would allow students of color to live without questioning them. To be able to have their own groups in solidarity with each other, that’s what community means. It’s a open space for groups to unite amongst themselves before they come into the whole. For white students, love involves evaluating the history of students of color being excluded to this college, and even while they are not excluded, admitted and oppressed.
I want you to understand that your equality at Occidental College goes so far as to say that you are all students at Occidental College. As for our common equity, we don’t have one. Many students have privilege. We are oppressing each other. The fact that your identities lead to privileges leads to the oppression that goes on in our community. Often times this work is hard. It’s hard to come together. The Mission at times seems impossible or even hopeless. To love each other is tiring. And many of my peers are worn out. But the fact is that we don’t have time to become tired of these issues. We don’t have time to tire. Love doesn’t mean that we are coming together and giving each other hugs, nor standing in a circle singing ‘We Are the World.’ To love is so hard!
Love means that you shouldn’t sympathize with someone who shit happened to. You should ACT as if it happened to you.
So for you students, I challenge you to come into this new space and change it. Yourselves, the space around you. To denounce the oppression that my fellow peers have permitted to go on. Denounce the oppressive institutions that may have benefited you in the past.
Find out what heteronormativity, whiteness, and patriarchy mean to your life. By the time you leave Oxy I want you to know the complexities of it, the historical implications of it.
My original plan in this speech was to tell you about your heritage. I want everyone to know that the college that they go to is significant because they have a multicultural mission and history behind it.
However, I decided that what would be more important is to tell you a story about three black presidents at Oxy. The first is named John Slaughter, and he was here in 1988. He revolutionized the mission statement and strove to bring equity and excellence to life at the school.
The College was so sensitive of a black man here that they named the administrative building after him. Coons. (awkward laughter) Nope just joking, that’s Arthur G. Coons, but sometimes love involves changing the ways we do things around here. I personally haven’t enjoyed the premise of paying my financial aid in a building commonly referred to as ‘Coons.’
Without President Slaughter we would have no idea of our identity as an institution. And while I don’t believe that we’re at the point of total amnesia, I do think that we are having an identity crisis.
This point leads me to the second black president of Oxy, (me). I ran because I felt like our school was losing our identity. That sometimes purposefully, other times unintentionally, we were losing touch with our goals. I believe that Oxy has deteriorated to such an extent that we’ve tried to substitute respect and love with civility. While civility has its points, I say that we choose the higher road. I chose love when I dedicated my first year to the movement, my second year to educating the campus.
This year by trying to lead by example and by service to this college, and by speaking with courageous honesty about who we were, who we are, and who we can still become as an institution.
The third black president is an alumnus from the ’80s, When he was here he challenged the institution about its divestment from apartheid in South Africa, and while I stand here I challenge the school to its divestment from oppression, from racism, homophobia, sexism, and a reinvestment in equity. In case you were wondering, that man is the future president of the USA: Barack!
And so to you, the class of 2011, it’s on you. I’m leaving after this year along with my peers, and it’s on you from here on out. But I promise that as an alumnus that I wont stop until this love is realized. I challenge you to fulfill our mission until true diversity is present at Occidental College. To the point that diversity, equity, multiculturalism is how that love is expressed across the institution.
So go out and love each other this year. Thank you.”
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