When I first accepted this job, Amherst was reeling from a months-long election scandal and would soon erupt with controversy over a ban on fraternities. I was a soon-to-be sophomore with no idea what I was getting into. All I knew was that this newspaper was basically consuming my entire life already, so I might as well make it official.
The Amherst College Black Student Union held its annual Kwanzaa celebration last Friday night. The other members of the BSU executive board and I hosted an empowering night of community reflection and togetherness in the Octagon. We began by acknowledging the transformative work of members of our community through an award ceremony followed by a catered dinner.
After years of debate, the issue of Amherst’s unofficial mascot, the Lord Jeff, has finally come before the board of trustees. At its meeting this January, the board of trustees will finally discuss the question of whether Lord Jeffery Amherst should represent this college as our mascot. The Amherst Student urges the board of trustees to publicly condemn the Lord Jeff as an outdated symbol of colonial imperialism and violence that in no way represents our college or our values as a community.
As an activities coordinator at the Queer Resource Center, I recently helped put on an event that focused on the ways in which language shapes conversations about gender and sexuality. It was incredibly interesting to hear so many people describing their own experiences with their mother tongue and the ways in which the language they grew up with affected the way they thought and spoke about gender and sexuality.
During the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 12, I was caught up in the rip-tide like force of a collective cri de coeur in the foyer of the Frost Library.
At the Nov. 17 faculty meeting, Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein invited students to speak about academic workload. Students spoke about how they juggled academics alongside work study jobs, familial and personal issues, extracurricular and athletic commitments and sleep. They called on faculty members to be more flexible with deadlines. They spoke about how fear permeated Amherst classrooms. Interestingly, the stories, grievances and suggestions which students shared did not wholly cohere around the idea that we have too much work.
The attacks in Paris and terrorism abroad have led many Republicans to make bigoted comments and continue to push for xenophobic policies. Trump is not alone; many people share his prejudice. If Republicans believe that they can convince the American electorate of the “merits” of their xenophobic policies, they will be quick to learn: They can’t and they won’t.
