Leaders in all walks of life

Editorial: Connection to place

This past fall, there were several incidents of racial and gender bias directed toward Bowdoin students and a professor close to campus. They ranged from drive-by verbal assaults to an episode of racial prejudice in a local restaurant. President Rose asked Brunswick town officials to begin a conversation about these issues. The town formed a “Human Rights Task Force,” with the goal of addressing bias incidents that affect not only Bowdoin students, but the entire Brunswick community. The formation of this task force was not an obligation, but a choice made by the town of Brunswick to accommodate Bowdoin students and make them feel more comfortable in the town they call home.
Yesterday, at the first meeting of the task force, town officers discussed a commitment to foster a welcoming community that Bowdoin students and Brunswick residents can share. Some attendees of the meeting expressed concerns that the College’s interests are being prioritized over those of the residents, because the town council has reached out more formally to the College than to the general population of Brunswick in forming the task force. As the task force looks to improve “human rights” in Brunswick, it is just as important to hear from Brunswick residents as it is to include the College in these conversations. These residents point out an important reality—Bowdoin risks exerting outsized influence over town governance and the issues it prioritizes. While we may not realize this privilege, it can be difficult for local residents to ignore.
The Bowdoin community is inextricably tied with that of Brunswick and while students may only see the direct relationship when the actions of Brunswick residents affect them, our presence is felt by the people who live here every day.
We can’t change the institutional power Bowdoin exerts in Brunswick, but we can do little things to keep our day-to-day presence in the community a generally positive one. Bowdoin students have longstanding relationships with Brunswick through volunteer programs and organized community outreach, but this shouldn’t be anyone’s only connection to the town they live in. Brunswick has committed to making itself a comfortable place for Bowdoin students and we should do the same for Brunswick residents. Small acts like minding our language on Maine Street and keeping the noise down when we walk to off-campus residences show respect for the community that we share. If Bowdoin’s presence in Brunswick is undeniable, our individual presences should, at the very least, be inoffensive.
We are grateful that the town of Brunswick takes Bowdoin’s concerns seriously and is willing to work with us on preventing these incidents, though it is unfair for us to expect Brunswick to prioritize us over the town as a whole.
This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Julian Andrews, John Branch, Jono Gruber, Matthew Gutschenritter, Emma Peters, Meg Robbins, Nicole Wetsman, and Emily Weyrauch.

Editorial: Progress and persistence

One year ago, student activists held a demonstration in Smith Union. At its conclusion, they presented an open letter to the Bowdoin community containing a series of 19 “calls to action” for the College’s administration that took a stand on the intersecting issues of climate, sexuality, class, gender and race. This week in the Orient, we took stock of what progress has been made on each of the appeals.
The administration has been taking concrete actions in response to the issues brought up at last year’s meeting. Thanks to campus activists, Bowdoin has made significant strides in grappling with the implications of its historical whiteness, and has started conversations that have led to actual institutional changes. Each move forward is a success when looking at the history of Bowdoin and examining whom the College was originally created to serve. This week, for example, the newly-created BSG position of multicultural representative went into effect. This is a lasting, important action, pursued by student activists, that is a small but significant shift towards making Bowdoin a more inclusive environment moving forward. President Rose’s acknowledgement of racial inequalities on campus was important as well—a naming of a problem that some Bowdoin students have been struggling with, unheard, for years.
But advocacy informed by a desire to make Bowdoin a safe space conscious of the injustices around us needs to continue. Progress made by administrators is not inevitable; it is tied directly to the pressure students are able to exert for change, and their continued and sustained efforts in doing so. Class issues were one of the meeting’s focal points, but were left out of the calls to action, thus taking a backseat in the administration’s agenda.
Each step has been the result of a push from students who want to make Bowdoin a more accessible place for them. Bowdoin cannot rely on the momentum of last semester to keep students working for social justice on this campus. The very structure of a four-year college means that with new students matriculating and young adults graduating annually, we cannot rely on the same faces to be leading the fight each year.
The administrators of Bowdoin have good intentions, but they have certain responsibilities that students do not. Often, their jobs involve upholding the image and reputation of an institution that is most comfortable when progress happens at a slow, gradual pace. Students should not expect administrators alone to lead the charge for institutional advances in regards to race and intersecting issues of identity, especially when many students feel that a movement like this is urgent. Invested underclass students—those directly affected by injustices and their allies—have the responsibility to keep tabs on what has been accomplished and to keep pushing as they progress through their time at Bowdoin.
This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Julian Andrews, John Branch, Jono Gruber, Matthew Gutschenritter, Emma Peters, Meg Robbins, Nicole Wetsman, and Emily Weyrauch.

Editorial

This piece represents the opinion of The Bowdoin Orient editorial board.

February 5, 2016

DeRay Mckesson ’07 announced on Wednesday that he is running as a Democrat to be the 50th mayor of Baltimore. He announced his candidacy in a Medium article in which he acknowledged he was a non-traditional candidate, writing, “I am not a former Mayor, City Councilman, state legislator, philanthropist or the son of a well-connected family. I am an activist, organizer, former teacher and district administrator that intimately understands how interwoven our challenges and our solutions are.” His words quickly went viral online, picked up by many of his 299,000 Twitter followers.

Mckesson has an impressive breadth of achievements. At Bowdoin, Mckesson was the president of BSG twice and served three terms as his class president. After his graduation from Bowdoin, Mckesson worked as a teacher for Teach for America, worked for The New Teacher Project and the Harlem Children’s Zone, and then in human resources for the Minneapolis school system. In the summer of 2014 he famously left his job in Minneapolis to go to Ferguson, Mo. to join the protests of the death of Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer while unarmed.

Mckesson began community organizing through social media, and has since taken his activism to other high-profile sites of police violence—including Waller County, Texas, where Sandra Bland was found dead in a jail cell, and Mckesson’s hometown of Baltimore, where Freddie Gray died in a police van. With other Black Lives Matter activists, he helped to create Campaign Zero, a 10-point agenda to reduce police violence with a platform that focuses on decriminalizing minor infractions that disproportionately affect poor communities of color.

It is an understatement to say that Mckesson’s public persona is unusual for a Bowdoin alum. He’s switched places with Stephen Colbert for a late night segment, guest lectured at Yale Divinity School, and been the focus of a New York Times Magazine feature; he’s sparred with Wolf Blitzer on live TV and been called a “next-generation race baiter” by the National Review. He’s faced too many death threats to count and was the subject of the trending hashtag #gohomederay. His signature blue Patagonia vest has a tribute Twitter account, @deraysvest, with over 4,000 followers of its own.

It’s inspiring to us that Mckesson, who’s forged a unique trail to this point, came from Bowdoin. We’re often told that the path to a meaningful career can be winding and indirect, but most of our notable alumni are successful via a traditional path. Take the Board of Trustees—almost half work in finance. There is no “be an activist” counselor at the Career Planning Center. Yet, we hope that in the future, Mckesson will not be such an outlier. Mckesson doesn’t have his name on a building, but he is the Bowdoin alum doing the most exciting work right now.

This editorial represents the majority view of the Bowdoin Orient’s editorial board, which is comprised of Julian Andrews, John Branch, Jono Gruber, Matthew Gutschenritter, Emma Peters, Meg Robbins, Nicole Wetsman, and Emily Weyrauch.

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