There is one person on the planet whom I can honestly say I hate. This in spite of two and a half years of lovingkindness meditation. I’m not talking about the profound yet somehow abstract hatred you feel for a brutal dictator in a far-off land, nor the reluctant half-desire, half-loathing of an ex-lover. I’m talking about the peculiarly bitter, tenacious hatred you feel for a person who once caused you an acute and unforgettable humiliation before a tribunal of peers.
Oberlin College in the mid-’80s was fertile ground for humiliation.
“Identity” politics were gathering steam, and everyone was discovering his or her oppression. In the larger superstructure of both the college and society, minorities of all categories still struggled for basic parity. Our student social life, however, had become a sort of inverted universe: The more oppressed groups you belonged to, the higher your status. And the higher your status, the more license you had to publicly call people on their unconscious bigotry.
Generally, those of us whose sole claim to oppression was gender had only white males on whom to take out our anger (and I took mine out in spades). Occasionally, however, someone could gain status through the sheer force of moral indignation and be accepted as an honorary member of a more oppressed group than her own. These individuals were always the most virulently righteous when taking other members of their own societal subsection to task for their sexism, racism, classism or homophobia.
Don’t misunderstand me. I have no desire to belittle anyone’s anger at injustice by slapping it with the mocking label “politically
correct.” College is a violently politicizing time; the sudden awareness of your personal story as part of a broader societal mosaic can galvanize phenomenal growth, courage and action. And if some tender feelings get hurt along the way, I’m not convinced that’s always a bad thing, especially if those feelings have survived 18 years without close examination. Given all of that, why do I still hate her, after all this time?
“Laura” was a latter-day hippie when she arrived at Oberlin from a New England prep school in 1984. She played Woody Guthrie songs on her guitar, was openly bisexual and wore her muddy blonde hair hanging straight down her back. She seemed to frequent every political organization on campus, but was most visible in the Women’s Center, where she was the primary contact for Violence Against Women Awareness Week (VAWAW) and its crowning event, the
Take Back the Night March.
That same year, I arrived at Oberlin from Lawrence, Kan., with shaved legs and lipstick, wearing polka-dot leotard and mini-skirt combos, my wavy brown hair permed in a fluffy ‘fro. Like Laura, I was eager to get involved in the abundant political life of the Oberlin campus. Giddy with admiration for the feisty, articulate student activists, I focused my political energies on SANE/Freeze and Democratic Socialists of America. For a solid year I remained blithely oblivious to the Oberlin aesthetic, roundly confused when
the scruffy, defensive young men I worshipped wouldn’t give me the proverbial time of day.
By our senior year, Laura had become an ultra-hip leather dyke, or its vinyl equivalent (leather didn’t go over too well in our largely vegetarian school). Her hair, now platinum, was short and spiky, and her acoustic guitar had long since gone electric. She was no longer involved with the Women’s Center, but had become the most prominent white anti-racism activist on campus. I, meanwhile, had grown out my leg and underarm hair, gained 20 pounds, traded my polka dots for tie-dye, and become an outspoken bisexual.
I was now co-chair of the Women’s Center and a primary organizer of
Violence Against Women Awareness Week and the Take Back the Night march. I revered Laura, but whenever I tried to connect with her, she looked at me as though I were an unwelcome pop quiz. Still, I managed to invite her to appear in our VAWAW panel discussion on “Rape and Racism,” and to my delight, she accepted.
