Growing up in a low-income household, I didn’t ever hear elevated conversations about how the fetishization of the female body in some obscure French film contributes to sexism in modern France, or how the Pop Art movement in America expanded to other countries and what that implicated for those countries. A ‘good time’ for my family is not analyzing cinema together, paying special attention to the director’s decisions on color palettes and what that means about the protagonist’s mood. We don’t discuss the special findings of a report on low-income families… we don’t discuss those things because… well, simply…
I never had those conversations because my parents spent upwards of 120 hours a week combined at work. When they got home and had time, they were tired— or other responsibilities got in the way first. My brother’s report card, the fee I needed to pay to go on a field trip… not to mention paying the bills and the rent to make sure we didn’t lose our home. I am forever eternally grateful for their sacrifices, because if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably at an Ivy League university, with the ability to discuss these issues in class.
However, sitting in on these classes, I’ve heard students talk about situations like mine, situations like my friends’ situations back home and here on campus. I’ve heard them talk about it in such a manner that elevates the problems we discuss, like poverty, sickness and the problems with capitalism. All of a sudden, the real stories and the real people behind these problems disappear, replaced by rhetoric, countless graphs and flowery discussions that always come to some impasse or give way to other friendly discussions.
For me and for my family, this is real life. This is not an academic discussion and we can not afford to be lost. One of the problems with academia is that it takes away the urgency of the situations that we discuss. Talking about these issues from so high up leaves room for distance, an alienating distance that blurs reality. The academic discussions I have heard only breed inactivity, because once we hit the impasse I discussed before, what do we do?
The answer would be simple to me: we look for solutions. We should talk voraciously, we should discuss hungrily, as if we cannot get enough, until we find the solutions to the problems of humanity that we discuss. As academics, it is our role, our privilege—no, it is our damn responsibility to take the comfortable distance we are given in these roles that the very people that we’re supposed to help cannot afford to have. Distance from their situation is not something my parents have, or can readily afford. Up until I came to the Ivy League, I did not have the distance— and even now, I am working to find that distance, to help solve the problems that face the world.
What is even worse, is that some academics that I have encountered tend to close in their ranks with other academics, casting off those who can’t return the rhetoric they deal in. I think this is one of the world’s most close-minded actions. How can we expect to grow and learn and find new perspectives if we only pay attention to those that make us feel comfortable? Life is made to push the boundaries and find common grounds with those around you, and to take life experiences from those who are different. If an academic refuses to listen to my story, or my parent’s story, they can’t be worthy of the title. They are highly revered in society and past societies as the keepers of knowledge and wisdom to impart upon on the world, but I think the academic culture in America is one of isolation, alienation and a ‘better than thou art’ attitude.
