Opinion: What’s the Deal with Community Anyway? or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Hypothetical 40″ TV

I have come to hate the word “community.” I am all for everything that community should stand for: solidarity with one’s fellow human beings, backing one another in our struggles against the powers that be, building a supportive environment to live and thrive together. At the same time, I’m growing tired of the constant co-opting of “community” as a meaningless buzzword in the media strategy of liberal institutions, which can be seen most immediately from our very own Reed College administration.

Amidst the ongoing extrajudicial terror by ICE, it goes without saying that a radical sense of community is more important than ever. We need the kind of networks fueling the protests against ICE and the Trump administration’s campaign of increasing brutality in Minneapolis and beyond: a truly radical impetus to fight for all those who are suffering in the country.

Yet, during this crisis, the same old liberal institutions, as always, are intent on preserving their status in the public eye. They are set on being seen to have said something rather than doing anything substantial to help those in danger from ICE’s violence. The public messaging of Reed administration presents a case study of the liberal deployment of “community” across multiple political situations as a public image tactic meant to save face without making any statement that could be seen as too controversial to potential revenue sources. This campaign is all “imagining dialogue” and “community conversation,” which makes the absence of tangible action all the more palpable than mere pseudo-neutral silence.

Regarding administration’s communication with the public, I agree wholeheartedly with Philip Dussin in last week’s Letter to the Editors. Moreover, rather than lending support to actions like the Jan. 30 general strike against ICE, the newly-formed yet omnipresent PCCC proposes a delayed “Day of Reflection and Community Action,” consisting of “Paideia-like classes” where the impetus is placed upon students and staff to organize nonspecific educational sessions with a vague sentiment of rallying the community. The PCCC’s communications regarding ICE focus on the emotions and experiences of students and staff, framing the issue as one of personal response rather than the events themselves. The writers of this bland, corporate-sounding email cannot bring themselves to commit to any euphemism stronger than vague “racialized violence” to describe the killings and unlawful detentions at the hands of ICE. At this rate, neutral administrative silence would be more understandable than such half-hearted, even condescending attempts at publicly acknowledging the horrific events currently taking place while making no tangible effect on the greater community. 

Instead of the passive “community” envisioned by our administration in their press releases, we need a radical revitalization of our community from the ground up. Already, the Sunrise Movement stands as an example of student activism that has gained tremendous ground in the past year. These forms of student activism are incredibly powerful. I wish I could say more, but I am hampered by being five thousand miles away and cripplingly out of the loop. However, unless miracles have happened in the last month, there is probably still room for political involvement to grow. Apart from specific activism, I stand by everything I said in my December Letter from the Editor; there is definitely room for more people to make a small difference by interacting more with the people around them in positive and productive ways rather than the meaningless self-righteous discourse which I still have the joy of witnessing in the MCs.

Even in my exclusion from the great Reed bubble, I cannot escape my emails. The Office for Institutional Diversity is asking me to take a survey on my feelings of belonging, which is a noble if dubiously helpful admin move, and for which I have the chance to be compensated with a 40″ smart TV. As a college student living in a dorm, what exactly can I do with a 40″ smart TV? Sell it to recoup a small portion of my tuition as I try to make it through another year at the 25th most expensive school in the country, a fact which must have a not-insubstantial impact on student mental health and feelings of community, I suppose. Though I don’t really think this TV is a sign of fascism, it would be nice if it weren’t so random and thoughtless. Yet, harmless as it may seem, this useless prize represents the deep chasm of understanding between students and their supposed benefactors in the administration; this chasm is too deep to be bridged. Actions are always taken on students’ behalf, without relying on proper student input beyond the unrepresentative sample of a few senators. Crucially, admin takes actions in spheres that would often be better off left to students in the first place—witness the entire graffiti debacle from last semester.

Without beating the study abroad horse to death, I find it pertinent to mention that I am currently going to a decentralized, non-residential university with upwards of 50,000 students—the “big school” they rail against at every Noise Parade. Every day that I go to class, I am both grateful for the opportunity to be there and deeply aware that I am a cog in the great educational machine. Even in this much more anonymized and disconnected environment, there is still a visible and vocal presence of opposition to administrative policies on student services and the general rise of the right wing in national politics. From this perspective, it is an immense privilege to go to a school where one can at least hope the administration should try to do something about our well-being. It is incredible to go to a school and know your classmates, your fellow humans, your would-be comrades-in-arms. What have most people been doing with this privilege as of late? Not a whole lot, from what I can tell.

On many levels, our administration is bound to fundamentally different goals and ideologies from their student body, and while this is no reason not to hold them to a higher standard, we also shouldn’t bother holding our breath. Community is not a title to be given and deployed at will by the powers that be in service of their desired public image. A true community is organically formed and constantly reinforced by the actions of the living, breathing people of which it is made. Community arises from the bottom up, rather than being imposed from the top down. Beyond that, community does not end at the borders of the Reed campus—we are a part of the greater Portland human ecosystem and we must stand with everyone in need outside of our privileged liberal arts bubble.