Students Use Groups To Find Their Niche

Members of the Radcliffe Union of Students received an e-mail invitation to a party this weekend.

“sextoyz!” it proclaimed in a bold banner announcement, advertising the group’s third annual sex toys party.

Besides promising discussion of first experiences with the toys, the e-mail enticed guests with free vibrators for the first 25 people in the door.

But when members scrolled down to the bottom of the e-mail, a more sedate script added that the event was dedicated to “women expanding their understanding of their bodies as sites of pleasure.”

That single e-mail highlights the dilemma most often faced by groups at Harvard that represent minority or marginalized communities.

These “identity groups,” often perceived as speaking for an entire community, must balance the need to provide a social space for their members with political stances that can threaten their cohesion.

The Comfort Zone

Student leaders say part of the dilemma stems from the fact that at a vast institution like Harvard, students expect identity groups to foster a sense of community—one built largely through social ties.

So students seek certain groups “to create a comfortable space,” says Toussaint G. Losier ’04, political action series chair of the Black Students Association (BSA).

RAZA President Maribel Hernandez ’04 says this desire, in turn, often results from a shift in identity minority and marginalized students often face once at Harvard.

“We didn’t necessarily think of ourselves as Mexican-Americans or Mexicans before we came to Harvard,” she says. “But when you get here, that’s what you are.”

“This year we had a lot of new freshmen who felt alienated when they realized Harvard was no feminist haven,” adds Jessica M. Rosenberg ’04, the publicity chair for RUS.

This desire for camaraderie goes hand in hand with tempered political activity.

Last April, the Bisexual Gay Lesbian Transgendered and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) planned a queer “kiss-in” outside the Science Center as part of “Gaypril,” its self-styled name for its gay pride month. But it was called off at the last minute because of dissension within the group.

The issue polarized the group’s membership, with some members heatedly arguing that the controversial aspects of the event were unwarranted without a concrete impetus.

“Some people felt that it was too political,” says Oussama Zahr ’06, chair of the BGLTSA’s new political committee.

This year, the group’s calendar features many more social events than political activities, though the BGLTSA this week decided to form a standing political committee to encourage rank-and-file members to participate in deciding the group’s political stances.

“It’s easier to achieve consensus about social goals than political ones, since within our ranks we certainly harbor a spectrum of divergent opinions about issues like queer studies or ROTC,” says Marcel Q.A. LaFlamme ’04, the public relations chair.

The concern that such bold political statements will alienate members is not limited to BGLTSA.

Former co-chair of the Asian American Association (AAA) Sophia Lai ’04 says that, while students who are very interested in Asian Pacific American issues are comfortable with both political and social aspects of AAA, “the majority of students are more comfortable with the cultural and social aspects.”

BSA President Charles M. Moore ’04 says he has seen similar dynamics at play within the black community, when students who attend BSA social events such as dances or Apollo Night might distance themselves from the official group because of its connotations.

“Students who I see at BSA parties and events I consider part of the community,” he says. “But we’re cast in a light that pigeonholes us.”

Like the BGLTSA, RAZA has a system for deciding the stances they will take and how political the group will be.

RAZA conducted a membership survey earlier in the year, asking members how they would like to be involved in politics and in community service. In addition, Hernandez says the group votes before getting involved in political issues, like last year’s much-publicized push for Latino studies.

“We’re trying to cater to their interests,” says Hernandez.

In the Spotlight

But even when the membership agrees on an identity group’s political stance for a particular issue—or on whether the group should be political in the first place—still more obstacles loom.

Not only do they face hurdles in mobilizing their group, but their actions come under close scrutiny, group leaders say. This, even though current political activity more often takes the form of lecture series and letter-writing campaigns than the explosive demonstrations of the 70s.

They say the situation represents a catch-22.

“If you’re not doing old-style rallies some people say you’re apolitical,” says Fred O. Smith ’04, vice-president for the BSA and a former BGLTSA chair. “But if you are, you can get labeled as too radical.”

Last year’s Eleganza demonstrates how social and political boundaries are often ambiguous for minorities on campus.

At BlackCAST’s annual spring fashion show, four students in the mock a capella group “The Callblacks” performed a skit comparing University President Larry H. Summers’ treatment of blacks at Harvard to that of a plantation overseer.

Singing a version of the Will Smith song “Summertime” called “Summerstime,” the group sang and rapped revised lyrics to the song, including the refrain, “Summers, Summers time, time to get those darkies back in line.”

While the skit was performed at a social event, its political content attracted considerable attention.

“It was a political statement, but it wasn’t as political as it may have seemed,” says Moore. “If they had done the skit in front of Summers’ office, that would have been a different story.”

Both he and Hernandez, the president of RAZA, say they are especially careful of their group’s policies because they may be taken as representative views of an entire racial group.

“It’s inevitable that people think we are representing the Latino community. Whether you like it or not, that’s your job,” Hernandez says.

Moore agrees, adding that sometimes that awareness leads to unintended consequences.

“We have to be careful about what we say because we know how it will be interpreted, and unfortunately sometimes we choose not to say anything. That’s not good for the way we can contribute to discussions on campus,” he says.

Identity groups of all kinds find themselves called upon to speak for their entire constituency to the point where “even not being political is political,” says Losier.

RUS members say they are familiar with this role.

“We fielded calls from the media asking about the Miss Harvard pageant, for example, but I didn’t even know anything about it,” publicity chair Rosenberg says.

But she adds that RUS leaders understand their role as “one size fits all” campus feminists. “Being pigeon-holed means that we can lobby from a political perspective,” Rosenberg says.

A Balancing Act

Ultimately, there is no easy formula to determine the role identity groups should play in students’ lives and in campus politics.

But part of the key is for future leaders to recognize that the inherently political nature of the groups must be tempered by fulfilling the social needs of their members.

The BGLTSA uses its social gatherings to make political statements, with its dances carrying the implicit message that, “At Harvard, GLBT students and their friends are free to openly gather and flirt and have fun together,”says LaFlamme.

For RUS, activities like the “sextoyz” party are a means of tying together the often conflicting purposes of the group.

“In trying to create a feminist community, our social activities have inherently political content,” she says.

Others suggest that underlying conflicts themselves are a means of reaching that tenuous balance.

“Groups on campus are beginning to gel with internal dissent,” Smith says. “They see that just through dialogue you can get people thinking.”

—Staff writer Amelia E. Lester can be reached at lester@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Sarah M. Seltzer can be reached at sseltzer@fas.harvard.edu.