Dissent: Learning From Renegade

Renegade, the new art and advocacy collective founded and run by Harvard students of color, dominated the campus dialogue as soon as they launched last week. With some students praising the group for providing a platform on which students of color can openly express themselves and others denouncing the magazine as divisive and offensive, the content, mission, and advertising campaign of Renegade were all heavily scrutinized.

However, regardless of which side of these debates you fall on, the very fact that Renegade’s launch caused such furor can help explain why so many students felt the need to found the magazine (and collective). If Harvard students of color attempting to speak their mind—and creating an advertising campaign designed to publicize this mission—can cause as much backlash as it has, it is pretty clear the student body at large has not been adequately exposed to their perspective.

Harvard students of color deserve a platform on which they can openly speak their minds about the issues that affect their lives without feeling as though they somehow need to filter their message or fit their prose into the style of one of Harvard’s older, more traditional and white-washed publications. Renegade can become that space.

Of course, as with the launch of any publication, some of Renegade’s individual content might not have been as effective as it could have been, and may even have led a segment of Harvard’s student body to become more actively antagonistic to the mission it puts forth. But that’s the point. Even if it’s still a little bit messy in some respects, Renegade has caused thousands of members of the Harvard community to read and have opinions on the work of students of color. And even if some of these reactions have been negative, the fact that there are reactions represents a mark of progress; Renegade, to use a cliché, has given a voice to the voiceless.

For this reason, getting caught up in the various micro-controversies surrounding the magazine’s launch (on specific articles, fake posters in Pforzheimer House, the ban of said posters, etc.) is beyond petty; in truth, it’s regressive. Ultimately, Renegade is about far more than the words that make up its digital pages, and its founding is just one step in the fight to radically alter the experience of Harvard’s students of color—an experience defined at least in part by the organizations and publications that dictate the campus discourse.

In this way, Renegade has proven the need to reexamine the identity of all of Harvard’s publications—from newspapers to literary magazines—that were founded by, and, in many cases, are still run by predominantly white students.

As Harvard’s most visible student publication, The Crimson needs to use Renegade’s launch as an opportunity to take a closer look at ourselves—to continue our mission of making The Crimson more diverse in staff and in content, to advocate for other campus publications to do the same, and to become a part of the renegade rather than just one of the countless reasons it came to exist.

Sam H. Koppelman ’18, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Hollis Hall.

DISSENTING OPINIONS: Occasionally, The Crimson Staff is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting staff members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.