Editor,

Wow. What is going on? This letter is being typed in an internet cafe on the East African Coast, the same cafe that’s been my single source of interaction with the outside world for the past 3 months. Through emails and the convenience of TSL online I’ve been able to follow...minute-by-minute...the events, not of September eleventh, but of the Valorie Thomas/Grey Norton/Mike Cadoux catastrophe. But before you stop reading this because you’re sick and tired of hearing about this issue know this: I’m talking about something different. I’m not talking about that night, I wasn’t there. Rather, I am calling your attention to the brilliant letters-to-the-editor that have appeared throughout TSLs of this semester from the likes of Lindsey Wollschlager, Camilla Clark, Lydia Lucas, Jessica Harris,, Christina Elmore, and others. If these names don’t ring a bell in your head, they should. If you can’t remember what articles they’ve written, dig out those ratty old copies of TSL and read them, now. Lindsey, Camilla, Lydia, Jessica, Christina, etc... are some of the smartest people I know...and I know a lot of you at Pomona College.

In case you’ve had your eyes glued to Instant Messenger for the past semester, these letters have been about issues like racism, classism, sexism. Did you read the one Christina wrote about anti-homosexual slurs she heard outside harwood?! More important, these ladies aren’t having some nebulous philosophical discussion about some random place, they’re talking about the subtle, and not so subtle racism, classism, sexism that happens in Walker, Frank, Carnegie, Eversole, every day. And I’m putting in my two cents to say that though Pomona is a place I really do love, and I know discussion about these issues happens and there are good good people who care, PROGRESS usually ends up being make believe.

Now...here’s an idea. The super scary thing for most of us to consider is this: all these women (I’ll mention their names again, Lindsey, Camilla, Lydia, Jessica, Christina) have one thing in common: they’re asking for our participation in something. And people don’t seem to get it until it gets beaten into us like 3 million times.

But there’s one problem.

After being able to experience Pomona loveliness for the past several years, I know that first and foremost we’re lazy. Second, we love to complain. That makes for a destructive equation. Someone complains, probably about some dumb-ass thing like how housekeeping still hasn’t cleaned up that vomit in the hall, and then people talk about it, gossip spreads, TSL decides to get involved, DQ pisses people off, and there’s all this hoo hawing and we get really excited cause we all feel like a difference can be made. So we have a day of dialogue, maybe a committee is formed, and then our lazy side takes over and we decide it’s not worth the trouble cause Simpsons comes on or something and people get high or go to snack, (or the royal combination of the 3) and as long as all our creature comforts are still there in the morning we see no need for change in our lives. Or we say, it’s not my problem. Or we turn the page of TSL, and laugh at the security briefs about people getting tazed.

Guys, I’m NOT preaching. All those girls I mentioned above will be the first to tell you that I am the laziest sack of shit ever, and I HATE hearing the same thing over and over again too. But what I can offer is this little anecdote. The community I’ve been living in for the past 3 months is 90% Muslim, and 19 American students stick out like sore white thumbs. Regardless of Sept 11, and insane Bush aggression, we’ve been received with open arms, super friendly people, really hospitable host families and a tiny community that understands that though our skin isn’t dark, and our god isn’t Allah, we are people.

So flash back to Claremont and bigotry, I know I am apart of this problem. And I’m a minority, wow, go figure. I am Mexican, I am gay, I am privileged. And I am definitely guilty of participating in anti gay conversation BEFORE I realized where all the frustration was coming from. Not that we’re all gay, though that’d be WONDERFUL, but we’re certainly all walking talking whirls of opinion. What finally needs to happen is a serious personal commitment to waking up, dealing with these issues in the open, recognizing our intolerance, and FINALLY changing. We don’t even have to get up off our asses.

Pomona College is tiny, it’s isolated, and it’s a community that is not representative of the world population. That means no one else but us decides what our lifestyle is going to be like. So don’t just be careful, or politically correct...start caring about the people you’re living with, start caring about the people you don’t know, and maybe you’ll find happier letters to the editor in the next TSL.

Respectfully,

Jason Torres-Rangel ‘03