​In Defense of Sensitivity

These past few weeks, I have been shocked and saddened by the backlash to Currier’s removal of its Housing Day video. Why has it become controversial to support members of our own community?

In Currier’s video, a student dressed as Donald Trump is looking to buy property at Harvard and ultimately decides that Currier is his favorite place on campus. Shortly after it was posted, the video was removed in response to some Currier students’ concerns that it makes light of a candidate whose rhetoric deeply disturbs and frightens them.

What worries me even more than the video itself is the response that I have seen to its removal. Within hours of its being taken off of YouTube, some students had reposted the video to another site and were sharing it alongside messages about how Harvard “coddles” its students and should instead be encouraging them to grow thicker skin. Even when students were moved to tears at a town hall meeting that evening as they discussed the ways that Trump’s rhetoric personally threatens them, some continued to argue that the video should be posted. Just yesterday, a Crimson editorial defended the video on the grounds that it is “light-hearted” satire that should not be blown "out of proportion.”

In my view, this response reveals a grave lack of compassion in our community. When we hear that something we have done has hurt other people and choose not to respond, we belittle their pain. When we claim that the video was all in jest, that it was anti-Trump anyway so they should toughen up and not worry about it, we act as though their emotions and life experiences are invalid. Somehow we think we know how they should feel, when in reality we have no idea what it is like to be in their shoes. For many of us who are not members of communities that Trump has targeted with hateful rhetoric, we cannot know what it feels like to fear violent expressions of Islamophobia or other repercussions of his campaign. Who are we to say that a Housing Day video satirizing him is not hurtful enough to warrant being taken down?

Ironically, by writing off the concerns of their peers, some students are acting in accordance with the beliefs of the very man they claim the video criticizes. At the heart of Trump’s presidential campaign is his rejection of “political correctness.” He distinguishes himself from other politicians through his willingness to make divisive and offensive comments, often targeting specific population groups such as Muslims or Mexican immigrants. According to Trump, the prospect of hurting someone else should not stop us from saying or doing what we want. When Harvard students argue that Currier administrators should have left the video online despite the pain that it caused others, they are essentially adopting Trump’s logic. As long as I find the video hilarious or satirical or harmless, they seem to say, I should feel free to share it.

What this reasoning fails to take into account is the fact that when some members of our community are hurting, the whole body suffers. In our first days at Harvard, we are repeatedly told that one of the most valuable parts of being here is the people. We are surrounded by a sea of brilliant and unique peers who can teach us more than we could ever learn inside a classroom. The residential houses at Harvard are meant to foster these relationships, and the purpose of Housing Day is to welcome freshmen into the house communities. If we release a divisive Housing Day video that alienates a segment of our community and makes some incoming freshmen uncomfortable, we are acting in opposition to the core purpose of Housing Day. If we refuse to listen to one another’s concerns and do not make an effort to build cohesive community, we are wasting one of the most precious gifts that Harvard offers us.

Taking other people’s feelings seriously and acting accordingly is not always “coddling” them. Rather, it is a way of supporting them as they walk through all of the hate and messiness that life throws their way. We are fortunate to live with an incredibly diverse group of peers, but if we don’t work to ensure that everyone feels like a valued member of this community, we are wasting an opportunity we’ve been given.

Michaela B. Morrow ’18 is a Government concentrator living in Currier House.