Concept: Oppression Camp

Expanded journal entry circa 2010:

I was at lunch after my first conference where I had just presented a paper about how Native Americans exemplify the comparative literature departments theme that year:Trash. As the only undergraduate amongst a group of phd students I was thrilled to have my eager remarks accepted into their witty banter. This meal was my inauguration into the big leagues for nerds.

We discussed the various presentations we had just heard, and I mentioned how bad I felt for having just made everyone at the conference cry when I read my account of u.s. history. But also, I noted, how crazy was it that they were really surprised enough by the news that indigenous people had it rough to be lead to tears? As I recalled their weepy faces I thought, I live with this history everyday, come on! Why are you crying over this?

At this point, one of the phd students blurted out how he wished someone would just create an Oppression Camp for White Men. Someplace they could go to be oppressed for a week so they would forever know what it feels like, so they could not only empathize with a story about the tragedy of my native ancestry, but to actually feel it viscerally like only a person who has been tormented by oppression can. (This genius phd student happened to be a white male himself, though he fancied himself particularly enlightened, which I agreed he was since he recognized the great need for such a camp.) We all joked at the irony of his suggestion and continued our lunch.

I cannot tell you how many times I fantasized about that camp after that day. Oh, it isn't that I truly wish to harm anyone. But don’t you secretly feel that all people who’ve lived perfectly cushy lives just don’t get it sometimes? Isn’t it sweet of me that all I want to do is give them a broader, more sympathetic worldview? And isn’t it good that I want to end their ignorant remarks about women and minorities so that women and minorities don’t have to be angry with them anymore?

Maybe that camp will just force the attendees to read Edward Said and essays on Eurocentrism. For the men I will throw in some Simone deBeovoire and Irigaray. Wouldn’t that help? Better (legally, or ethically) than some of the other programs that have run through my mind… I don’t know if it would ever really work. Only those on the outside can tell what is happening inside, to paraphrase Irigaray. After all, those on the inside don’t really have anything to gain, so who could make them attend?