Racism in the Opinions section of Bi-Co?

There was an article in the Bi-Co last week that bothered me a lot: (please read first)

http://www.biconews.com/?p=9297

So the author felt an uneasiness at this person on campus, who from what I can gather, later was discovered to be the culprit of some of the robberies at Haverford. But what does her uneasiness stem from? She says that she smiled at these strangers whom she “suspected” were not Haverford students. Why did she have this suspicion? Seeing that the first identifying factor of this person was his race, I can’t help but wonder if there is some at least latent racism in her article. How could she tell he wasn’t Haverford? If the stranger had been white, wearing a polo shirt and boat shoes, would he have stood out in the same way?

Perhaps this is just an overreaction, and I don’t have a strong enough opinion to write in to the bi-co, but I thought I’d ask what everyone else thinks…

Q-Forum

We had our Q-forum in Merion last night, and overall I think that the facilitators did a good job with it. I’ve never actually been to a Q-forum, so it was an interesting experience for me as well.

I guess that everyone starts it out the same way, throwing out terms that they have heard for queer people, from more usual terms to more “street” terms, I guess. Not very many people threw terms out there, and they were mostly upperclasswomen.  I don’t know about you guys but I felt really uncomfortable doing it, even as a CDA, shouting out things like “dyke” and “homo” was awkward. Going through the terms afterward and discussing their meaning was helpful and interesting, but I’m wondering if perhaps we could change this beginning section of q-forum to an activity like “The Dating Game” which could introduce terms but in a fun activity rather than an awkward way.

I liked the second half where people submitted their questions on pieces of paper anonymously. “What’s The L-Word?” is a good example of a question where Bryn Mawr people sort of assume everyone knows what The L-Word is- I didn’t, freshman year I had never heard of the show and had to ask. 

How were everyone else’s Q-Forum’s?

Republicans at Bryn Mawr

…and Haverford too. Today, sitting in my Democracy in America class at Haverford, I became a bit frustrated with the fact that we were all clearly liberal democrats reading a leftist book. Sure, the professor would bring in the conservative perspective for the sake of argument, and I found myself trying my best to play devil’s advocate in the class. Maybe having been, most often, the one democrat in my class for 18 years of my life is what is making me have this reaction. But I can’t help but wonder if we do silence Republican and conservative views in the Bi-Co community. I’ve heard people dismissed as “stupid” for their political views- but no one who atends Bryn Mawr or Haverford is stupid; it’s unfair to say that. Especially with the upcoming election I’m wondering if there is anything CDAs can do to help this situation.

Megan’s here

“CDA’s rock my socks!” -Megan