Let’s Talk About Activism, Part 1

When I started college at Columbia, I was excited for a change of pace. In Brazil, I attended a British private school where, with only a few exceptions, the teachers, students, and administration were hardly left-leaning. Feminism was a dirty word, and when I presented on the history of the movement during assembly, over half of the boys in the audience booed. My first year of high school, I was scared to tell people that I was voting for a left-wing candidate because I didn’t want to be labeled a “communist” (an even dirtier word). 

However, as my passion for history and politics grew, my ideology became empowering — I had causes I was passionate about, and I defended them proudly. In time, my views and outspokenness meant that I became largely known as a “radical.” People called me that so often that part of me started to believe it — then I moved to college. 

In my previous article, I talked about the difficulties I encountered while searching for my identity at Columbia. A big part of that journey was political. Activism is different here. The environment is highly polarized, as was the case in Brazil, but the majority of the people I encounter have views similar to my own. To be fair, this was far from surprising — I’d be lying if I said that the liberal nature of Barnard and Columbia wasn’t one of the reasons I applied here early decision. Even though I love debating, I was excited to be around people who felt as strongly about my causes as I did.

Towards the end of my first year, the glitter began to fade. During a history class, I talked about my experience as a Latina, only to be aggressively shut down by a girl who claimed I could not speak on the topic because I was white. I remember going back to my dorm that day and Googling what people from Brazil should be called. The results were inconclusive. I was born and raised in Latin America, my parents are Latin American, and my grandparents were Syrian, Lebanese, and Hungarian. I never have and never will feign ignorance about the privileges that come with my very pale skin, but being labeled exclusively “white” didn’t feel right either. My whole identity is rooted in Brazilian and Arab culture, and I felt like I was being forced to part with it. I became increasingly frustrated. I will obviously never be American enough, or European enough, and now I am constantly told that I am not Latina enough.

This is a huge problem at Columbia and Barnard. People are often too intimidated to express their support for a cause they identify with (sometimes on a personal level) because a small group controls and elitizes the movement: they decide who is “enough,” knows “enough,” and does “enough” to be considered a part of the cause. Activism at Columbia sometimes feels more like an exclusive club than a safe space for organized resistance. Mobilizing against the oppressor is twice as hard when most of my time is spent justifying my identity to people who know nothing about it.  

This is not to say that anyone should speak on anything — nothing is more infuriating than a cis man who talks over women on women’s issues. Moreover, the oppressed have no obligation to explain the nature of their oppression to the oppressor. However, there is something to be said about requiring allies of a movement to constantly prove their worth. Language, for instance, should be empowering and inclusive. Allies with a lesser knowledge on the proper terminology should be educated, but not shunned. Those who wish to support a cause should be welcomed, rather than questioned and made to feel inferior for not having joined sooner. 

I realize that there are several complications at every stage of this process, and nothing is black and white. There are different cases and different causes, and in no way do I claim to understand all of them. However, if we act on the (rightful) assumption that no two people have the same experience, different backgrounds should be respected so as to ensure that all of them feel understood. This is a process, and something that I myself grapple with daily, but without open-mindedness, inclusiveness is unattainable. 

• activism
• community
• exclusion