A Peculiar Observation

Ursinus and Diversity. How often have we all heard those two words in the same sentence? Probably more than collective sanity and empathy can bare. Recently, I was considering the diversity issues that we all hear so much about. I was looking on the website and trying to understand what Ursinus is actually doing, as they often claim they are doing a great deal to confront these issues. Just on the website something became obvious. The College has recently made a serious effort with Queer issues. Which is wonderful. Clearly, I benefit and partake in these efforts as a contributor to this blog. The reason it struck me as so interesting is that it seems, and this might not be the way it was meant to seem, that the College has chosen Queer issues as their diversity issue. What I mean by this is that College has pointed to Queer issues as the issue they would like to address under this umbrella term of diversity.

This might seem controversial, but as a person who benefits from this peculiar privilege, I think it is necessary to point out. Take for example Queer House. I have sat in on the meetings with Residence Life to get the house reinstated for next year, and generally know a decent amount of the effort to attain and retain the house. In the same meetings, there is always discussion of the other houses as well, which includes the Africana and American Studies house. This house is just as important and serves the same purpose Queer house does, only it is a space for students of color on our campus. The College has clearly given some sort of preference in the case of SPINT, and  it is important to discuss when it comes to understanding the efforts to make Ursinus a "diverse" community and diversity discussions generally.

Queer Spaces

Two RAs patrolling Main Street on the weekend before spring break began entered Schaff, or Queer House, to find the common room overflowing with residents and non-residents dancing, many of them visibly intoxicated. A number of students had been seen coming and going from the house, a quiet house where parties and alcohol are prohibited, and the RAs could hear loud music through the open windows, so it was their duty to investigate. They entered Schaff, passing by a few students huddled outside smoking cigarettes in the cold and found what was very clearly an unregistered party.

It wasn't just a party, but my 21st birthday party, and even though these RAs did what they had to do and instantly shut it down, taking names and checking IDs, it remains in my mind one of the best birthdays I've had in years. I was surrounded by people I had come to care for in my three years here at Ursinus, slathered in various colors of bright body-paint, hand-prints left by my friends. In the corner over a window was the house's vivid rainbow flag and it occurred to me that, unlike I might have years before, I didn't feel like I had been caught at the scene of a crime in its presence.

Thinking About Safe Spaces

Recently, I've been wondering about why many folks in the queer community (myself included) don't party in Reimert or the main street houses. (To clarify, for those who don't know, these are the Places to Be on campus when the weekend rolls around.) It's not like I don't enjoy parties. Like any good college student, I utilize parties to escape momentarily from the relentlessness of the academic work week. I indulge the idea that there is something important outside the drudgery of career building bullshit by engaging in a little hedonistic foreplay to what I hope will be some kind of life-changing experience. Yet, I rarely feel the need to wander over to the spaces where this exact kind of thing is happening. Why is that?

Of course, there are the obvious answers that these places are notoriously homophobic and uninspiringly heteronormative. We all know that the real reason we turn our Friday nights into carnivalesque binging sessions is to ensure that, by the end of it, we will be going home with another person. Naturally, being queer makes this a much more complex, nerve-wracking process. And that doesn't sound like much fun at all.