How will Andover remember Dr. Freeman Hrabowski a year from now? Will students remember his advice: “you don’t have time to be a victim?” Will math teachers remember the math problem that led him down to the path to a Ph. D.? Will the school recall an image of a little fat kid in jail protecting a hoard of youngsters from bullies using Bible verses? What of Hrabowski’s interpretation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day will stick? Will anything?
Reflecting on Lani Guinier, last year’s MLK Day keynote speaker, may help answer the question of community memory. One particular sound bite lingers in the Andover air: “feminazi dyke.” Guinier introduced the phrase in an anecdote about a game male law school students played at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. The game, called “asshole bingo,” consisted of predicting which students would speak during class. Male students who spoke up were nicknamed “assholes.” Females were nicknamed “feminazi dykes.”
The anecdote was merely an example of Guinier’s larger message about collective intelligence, namely that groups with a high number of effective listeners are better at problem solving. But this message, in contrast with the term “feminazi dyke,” has gone largely unremembered. At the time, Guinier’s colorful law school example, highlighting males as the agents of a poor learning environment, prompted many students to reject her speech, calling it a platform for denigrating men. And this, unfortunately, is what most returning students associate with Guinier now. In this instance, many students shed their critical thinking habits and responded defensively to an accusation of agency, which has resulted in a misremembering of Guinier’s message.
There is no analogue to Guinier’s anecdote in Hrabowski’s speech. Hrabowski built his keynote on the universal advice, “you don’t have time to be a victim,” and targeted systemic problems rather than particular groups as the agents of inequality. His message proved easier for the school to digest last Monday, judging by benign chats on the paths, few heated dinner table debates and no explosion in Commentary. The message may, however, prove harder to remember a year from now. With no particularly controversial sound bite for students to hold onto, Hrabowski’s speech may fade in the Andover consciousness to a fond but blurry memory.
Neither Guinier’s speech nor Hrabowski’s speech was more true or insightful than the other. Both celebrated different facets of the complex and necessary celebration, MLK Day. Yet the Andover community will remember last MLK and this MLK Day completely differently, and already many remember last MLK Day inaccurately.
The Andover community is not paying the right kind of attention at the MLK Day keynote. It seeks controversial snippets like “feminazi dyke” or Spike Lee’s Phillips-famous statement “race is a merit,” or it drifts into a warm daze, comforted by easy messages of unity and systemic fault. For those who doubt the latter response, consider what the Andover community collectively remembers of Benjamin Carson’s MLK Day speech four years ago. Seniors recall he was a great speaker and inspiring figure (voted most likely to succeed by his classmates, a fact Seniors now confronting yearbook superlatives may find intriguing) but recall little about his fundamental message.
Benjamin Carson, Spike Lee, Lani Guinier, Freeman Hrabowski. Their experiences provide them with insightful ideas about race and inequality in America today, ideas that students are privileged to hear and almost obligated to incorporate into their worldviews, or at least consider thoughtfully.
But Andover does not seem to be listening quite right. Students often perk their ears to subjects that derive a controversial thrust from buzzwords, from their ability to polarize into camps, rather than grip the edges of the chapel pews to grapple with a complex, individualized philosophy. Students engage with controversy from a defensive stance and focus on proving themselves guilt-free rather than on understanding the sources of a problem. And when comforted by the notion of systemic fault, students tend to shrug contentedly thinking “not my fault” rather than critically attacking the system. Though individual students may undertake the task of critical self-reflection, as a whole the student body responds at worst defensively and at best passively to MLK Day speakers. This observation is discomforting, considering that the power to solve serious social justice problems comes largely from united group force.
Before another year slips by, students may choose how to remember Dr. Freeman Hrabowski and begin a long accumulation of knowledge about race and inequality in America. To do so requires active awareness. Together the student body must adopt the habit of practicing objectivity in the face of accusation and cultivate the instinct to take on the burden of systematic change. The way in which our generation consciously chooses to remember each MLK Day will undoubtedly affect how future generations unconsciously remember us.
This Editorial represents the views of The Phillipian Editorial Board CXXXIV.
