Category: Op/Ed

Space: The Final Frontier

by Marjorie Jensen 

Recently, Antioch’s administration has pushed for marketing our radical institution to the rich, white, straight population. While I am not totally opposed to the concept of hegemony, I believe that mainstreaming Antioch will corrupt the integrity of the college. For me, and many other students, Antioch is a place where we can be queer, alternative and revolutionary. It is our space.

Why is the concept of exclusive space so important? With a few notable exceptions (like San Francisco, neighborhoods in New York and Miami, and, of course, Boystown in Chicago) most of America is run by and for the population that the administration is working to attract. Their privilege includes having the vast majority of the power and money. They take up most of the space.

Before we come to Antioch, and after we graduate, minorities of all kinds are caught in a world where we are condemned, segregated and threatened. All we are asking for are four years (actually less, because of the time spent on co-op) in a place just for us. A liberal haven where we don’t have be subjected to the kind of discrimination that has dominated our lives. We just want a little space. I’ll give you an example. After spending a wonderful afternoon in Boystown shopping for a new vibrator, I had to work the late shift at Jimmy John’s. At 4:30am, a group of young, drunk, white, rich men filled the store. Gathering by my register, they decided to call each other “gay,� throwing the term around in a derogatory manner, contaminating the space.

I’m not sure exactly when the phenomenon of using the term “gay� as synonymous with “stupid� or “lame� began. All I know for certain is that it is still prevalent among the demographic that the administration is trying to attract. Why bring people with this attitude to Antioch? We have more than enough experience with this brand of ignorance. Why can’t we keep our space?

Now, perhaps I am showing my escapist colors. The point of claiming space, however, is not an escapist concept. Giving us the opportunity to commiserate, empathize and discuss the problems we have encountered in the “real world� is a way for us to “win victories for humanity.� For a very limited amount of time, we can bond over our collective pain in a space that is safe and positive.

Another example: when I was working as a freelance journalist in California, I was covering the Marriage Equality Act passing in the Assembly and Senate (it was later vetoed by Arnold the “discriminator�). I contacted Equality California, a major player in the campaign. Not surprisingly, an Antioch alum worked there and got me an interview with the Deputy Director of Marriage Equality USA.

This speaks to the connections that can be formed at Antioch in the queer community (or any alternative community) that will help us improve the “real world.� Antioch has historically been a breeding ground for revolutionaries. This is, in large part, due to giving us the space to meet, study, play and work with likeminded people.

I feel peaceful hegemony is a utopia beyond Antioch’s reach. Asking for less confrontation and working for mainstreaming is counter-productive. Actively recruiting people with privilege is going to lead to more confrontation. They have more to deconstruct in themselves in order to recognize the problems in society. Antioch is going to be, inherently, a confrontational space.

The way to achieve a less confrontational atmosphere is to recruit more minorities. Most colleges offer a homogenized, mainstreamed culture. Antioch is unique in our population of “others.� We experience a freedom of expression that many have never encountered before, and may never again. For the first time (and possibly the last) we have a space where we can be ourselves.

I understand Antioch is struggling. I know we need higher enrollment numbers and a far greater retention rate. But we are not going to achieve these goals by disillusioning those who come to Antioch. People search for a place where they will “belong.� Antioch promises to be that space for the radicals, the outcasts, the revolutionaries and the minorities.

The desire for our own space is not intolerance. We are not discriminating against anyone. There is no such thing as reverse prejudice. Asking for a little liberal haven does not impinge on the privilege that the majority enjoys. They have the world. Please don’t take what little space we have away from us. Antioch is the final frontier.

No Sex In The City

by Marjorie Jensen

A personal tragedy has overshadowed my ongoing deconstruction of privilege. There are wars overseas I could be discussing. “Community Government� is an AdCil agenda item. But I have to speak about the dead. I hope my prose-form elegy will move you, dear reader, to feel some empathy (or sympathy, as the case may be).

I mourn the loss of a loved one. It is an unfamiliar death. Last Saturday, at the penultimate moment of passion, my vibrator died. I have had to revive my most constant and loyal lover with the occasional battery or two, but death was never this permanent before. No matter how much I shook with tears in my eyes, I could not bring life back.

Now, you have to understand how long we have been together. I spotted this pink, sparkly piece of ecstasy over six years ago. Others have tempted me, but I usually couldn’t afford them anyway. Mine was uncomplicated, somewhat realistic, the perfect size. Reliable, you know. It never changed between us. Things were never awkward.

I never expected my most steadfast lover to abandon me in the city, to leave me alone so suddenly in a cold (and windy) metropolis. I have fretful dreams. Nights seem longer. I am uncomforted, frustrated. The loss of something without life leaves me mystified. How do I cope with this unexpected loss? Does everyone grieve differently?

I suppose I should think of it as an opportunity to buy something I’ve really wanted, something special and new. But the obsession with the familiar is unshakable. I crave the one I know and have loved. How do I find another exactly like the one that has died? I live with wanting and waiting. I hesitate to replace, to dismiss.

I have to escape somehow, forget my loss, and begin to love again. I live under the cruel, Petrarchan hand of the subject of my research- Elizabeth Regina. She speaks of a perfect courtier that pursues her with no intent to capture. I see her everywhere. She permeates my textsher gendered rhetoric correlating Twelfth Night to The Maid’s Tragedy. In all their women I see her words reflected. “To think of making love by sentiments!� Sterne speaks to me from the reading for class tomorrow, mocking not only the conventions of travel literature. I’ve been trying to seduce with words Gloriana of Spenser’s imagination; the ultimately unattainable woman outside my text. She is a signature under my hand, a poem written in Latin. I have only remnants.

While this Renaissance Queen has captured my days, my nights still beg to be filled. I work late hours on the weekend, playing hacky-sack, in Jimmy John’s apron and all, to fill the quiet before the storm hits at about 2am. My co-workers make me forget in my laughter. We make enough in our tip jar to go out for breakfast. We close the store as the morning crew unlocks the door behind us.

I mindlessly enter data in my comfortable cube in the Development office at the Newberry after events. Before bed, I try yoga, familiar movies, drinks with kids from JJ’s. Nothing eases me into sleep. I lie awake and remember years together, unfailing, perfect, effortless. I know I have to find another to make this cycle of half-living end.

Coming to the end of this conceit, I find I have no more euphemisms to shroud my loss. I’ll invoke New-Age magic to heal me. Hitachi’s wand awaits me online. I’m sure my quest will have a happy ending.

Broke

by Marjorie Jensen 

As tautological as it may sound, Chicago is an expensive city. Between only the most essential groceries and envelopes marked “Antioch Business Office,� unexpected bills found me miles from my “current mailing address.� My pithy checks signed by the President of the Newberry don’t cover half of these costs. I had to find a second job. I wasn’t surprised.

The second store within a few blocks of my apartment with a “Help Wanted� sign offered Caitlin and I jobs moments after turning in our applications. I am now an exhausted employee of Jimmy John’s sub shop. In fact, I have to leave for work in exactly two hours. Do I like it? It offers me something that the Newberry doesn’t: working-class people.

Now, I’m not implying uneducated. Some of the kids go to various colleges in Chicago. Most are just refreshingly down-to-earth. Take Kenny, one of our delivery drivers (read bike messenger with subs), informing us about where the elastic in his boxers had begun to separate from the rest. Davorah, our manager, asked him to clean the lower racks of the cold table (where we make our subs).

“I told you about my underwear,� he replied, unwilling to bend over. It breaks up the monotony.

JJ’s is open late on the weekends (by late, I mean until 5am) and we are on Division Street (read one of the most expensive bar districts in Chicago). My Friday nights are spent listening to the mantra of my manager, Matt: “bathrooms are for customers only,� to the rich, drunken “douchebags� with popped collars. He changes the CD to Mindless Self Indulgence and sighs as they ignore him.

These are the kids who couldn’t afford to take most of the “public� programs offered at the Newberry. We have a master schedule in the Development Office’s ‘S’ drive in the computer network. The ‘Sacred and Profane: The Art of the Tale’ workshop that I would love to take is 8 sessions for $160. I couldn’t afford it. I’m only at Antioch (and the Newberry) thanks to lots and lots of financial aid.

I invite my fellow Fellows to visit me at JJ’s. Some do, bringing me cigarettes and hugs. They are sad that I can’t go out with them. But they understand and are encouraging, calling my JJ’s uniform sexy. I appreciate that white lie. Caitlin is a riot to work with. We dance in the ‘back of house,’ as it were. Others are reluctant.

“I didn’t know if you would feel comfortable with me visiting you at work; seeing you in a subservient position like that,� said Laura from Beloit.

Really, it’s okay. I’m used to it. I’ve been working-class all my life. It does make for a strange relationship with the academy. Higher education is generally run by and for rich, white men. I chose Antioch, in part, to try to escape the elitist mentality of many institutions. Even our radical, left-wing haven has its literati and men earning drastically more than women. A microcosm, truly.

My Wednesday nights belong to the events at the Newberry. We held a pleasant reception for the Book Fair Volunteers. John Notz, the chair of the Fair that has been going on for twenty years, spoke briefly. He was proud of the work they had done- theirs was the only program that reached out to Marx’s proletariat. He hedged around that term, instead calling them:

“Those people who come to buy their year’s worth of romance novels for a few dollars.� Not the educated elite. Not those who have the money or cultural capital (as Bourdieu would say) to attend most of the events. Not those who receive Gala invitations with themed giving brackets (ie. Lords and Ladies being higher donors than the Knights and Damsels at the Elizabeth event).

The following Wednesday held the opening of ‘The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico’ event. I have been preparing the RSVP list, name-tags, signs, and various other internish projects for over a month now. The names on that list include the General Consul of Mexico, many members of the Board of Trustees and friends (read large donors) of the library.

I sat behind the check-in tables, anxiously awaiting 323 people that RSVP’ed. We didn’t make enough name tags. Many not on the list arrived, complaining about their name not being in the alphabetized collection spread out in front of us. We put out more chairs frantically. Eventually, David Spadafora, the President of the Newberry, took the mike to introduce the General Consul.

“We have not had sufficient contact with the Mexican-American community of Chicago,� he began. He continued, explaining that this event was an attempt to bring much-needed diversity to the library. The first step in solving any problem is admitting to it. The second is discussing it. I encourage students to come to the library, be part of the program and part of the solution.

Eating Chicago

By Majorie Jenson 

My arrival in Chicago was preceded by an angry paper about Columbus’ subjugation of the Native Americans in the Bahamas and Cuba perpetuated by his lack of a national or familial history. I’m sure you can understand my concern that I would be the token angry indigenous-identified radical queer woman. How’s that for identity politics?

My arrival was also preceded by a former Antioch student throwing a book at a patron of the Newberry Library (ask Tom Haugsby for the whole story). Suffice to say, we no longer have a co-op here. I had to prove myself and my college as a Newberry Research Fellow living in the Gold Coast District (read “rich white neighborhood�). Within the first week of the seminar, I found myself and my people being called “Indians,� repeatedly, by the Director of Renaissance Studies and subsequently explaining to my fellow Fellows why the misnomer offended me. They call us “Indians� because Columbus thought he was in the Indies. He also thought Cuba was Japan.

However, I have found my Columbus book useful. From beyond the grave, Columbus kills another indigenous group – the spiders that frequent my apartment. (These natives are abundant and fucking huge.) But seriously, the importance of semantics transcends being politically correct. It’s about accuracy and intelligence. We don’t call Cuba Japan because of Columbus’ ignorance. Let’s not misidentify an entire indigenous people because “Indianâ€? is easier to say. Coincidentally, my research topic is in the Renaissance and my professor encouraged me to talk with the Director.

“It’s okay,� he said. “She didn’t mean anything by it.�

Sure. Apparently, ignorance is bliss. Previous to this exchange, I challenged my professor’s analysis of the epic hero’s definitive “masculinity,� which led to a long discussion of the fallacy of a gender binary. In the end, he agreed that the political and economic factors of patriarchy proved that it was a better term. Again, a question of semantics that is larger conceptually than just being “PC.�

My time at the Newberry is split between research, class on travel writing and working part-time for the Development Office. My first task at work was to prepare for the General Consul of Brazil’s visit to the monthly “Wednesday Club.� This included making signs and copies for the event, moving chairs and generally acting as any intern would- as a gofer (go for this, go get that).

As the crowd entered Ruggles Hall, I felt distinctly and incontrovertibly out of place. They were the elite, well-dressed, well-off: the bourgeoisie. Milling around, they spoke of opera tickets, were surprised they had to pour their own wine and were dismissive of the catering staff. I hung their coats and identified myself as “the intern� when introduced.

I racked my brain for enough Spanish from my distant high school classes to speak with the catering staff when encouraged to eat by my boss. They seemed relieved that I tried to explain my vegetarianism (sin carne, por favor). I stood in the back, shrugging into my cardigan sweater, trying to blend in with the wall, feeling very much the underdressed and poor intern. I ducked out during the Q and A and gossiped with the security guard at the front kiosk. He was, at that moment, the only one I could relate to: a working-class POC that assured me that I would adjust to the extravagant, fivestory, marble-accented library and the mostly ignorant white librarians. I was still unsure, but comforted nonetheless.

After my distinctly Antiochian complaints, I worried what my weekend held. The other students were beautifully nerdy and, as most educated people are, liberal. They came from colleges such as Kenyon, Lawrence, Beloit and Hope. None had the radical reputation of Antioch. And no one thought poorly of our “confrontational culture� (and many have visited Antioch). On Friday night we met on the fourteenth (read thirteenth and a superstitious architect) floor. The night began with Appletinis and Cabernet Sauvignon raised in praise of the semi-colon; “the sexiest punctuation mark ever,� said Jason from Albion. We played the prerequisite game of Never Have I Ever and I explained the rules of Cliff.

Eventually, we moved to the seventeenth (read sixteenth) floor, put on trashy pop music and smoked too many cigarettes (or at least I did). The studio apartment was transformed in Club Newberry, and the remaining Fellows danced away several hours. After Nick from Denison danced on his kitchen counter, we decided to relocate.

In drunken impatience, Jason, Nick, Becky (also from Denison) and I left the others to bravely broach the Zebra Lounge, a dark, sketchy bar in the first floor of our apartment building. An older pianist played Beatles covers. Drinks were overpriced. We talked about the library, Milton, Shakespeare and erotica. Other bar patrons expressed their envy of our scholastic endeavors.

The city called and we walked two blocks to the shore of Lake Michigan. The buildings reached for the sky like fingers with many jeweled rings. Small, warm waves crashed around my feet. My dress winked back at the jewels of the city and I held black stilettos out of the water while Chicago’s much acclaimed wind tugged at my hair.

We talked about privilege. Our ramblings included this extravagant life as a temporary construct only to be taken from us by the real world. We marveled at how well we were living. We knew that we will never live this good again, being English majors. We promised to enjoy our impermanent existence. “For four months, Chicago is ours,� Becky said to the skyscrapers.

“We’ll eat Chicago,� said Nick, quoting an obscure song. I can only assure you that we will.