Black Lives Matter speaker misses the mark, but raises important questions about Race at Menlo.
Rory Plewman | Opinions Editor
Early this morning, September 28, the student body filed into the Main Gym and braced themselves for another assembly. There were the moans and groans about the hard benches, and the collective feeling that this time could be spent completing that math worksheet you forgot to do over the weekend. The pervading sense of sluggishness was manifested in the lackluster applause that greeted Jeff Steinberg, the founder of Sojourn to the Past, as he leapt up on stage and began talking a mile a minute.
At first the mood of the crowd seemed interested and engaged, Steinberg had a very distinct form of speaking, but as he began to delve further into his arguments, the crowd around me began to become unsettled. So what had Steinberg said that was putting us sheltered Menlo students on the hot seat? Steinberg was talking about race, more specifically the systematic oppression of minorities in our country throughout history and the manifestation of this deep seated bigotry in the recent proliferation of attacks on people of color by members of law enforcement or regular citizens. But was he effective?
No. His megachurch-preacher style performance missed the mark. I felt extremely confused as to what emotions I should be feeling as he oscillated so rapidly between extreme rage and humor. Additionally, whilst I believe his message, that racism is unfortunately still an epidemic that plagues the United States, his shocking tactic of showing us the videos of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Walter Scott’s brutal murders was distressing to say the least. It ultimately boils down to the fact that he treated the Menlo audience like ten-year-olds incapable of independent thought. Steinberg is not familiar with our community, and may not have realized, or was not briefed on, the globally aware audience that he was presenting too. He showed us videos to make us mad, photos of those who had lost their lives to make us sad, and then more videos of people he deemed as bigots (i.e Bill O’Reilly) and expected all of us to lie down passively and accept his arguments, which were thinly couched in Constitutional rhetoric.
Whilst we all can agree that Steinberg’s message is an extremely important one, the mode through which he presented his argument detracted from the ultimate takeaway. However, I do feel that Steinberg was successful in making us uncomfortable, part of the reason why his presentation was so polarizing, and this discomfort, in and of itself, is indicative of a larger problem at Menlo. We are uncomfortable talking about race. We have been told since an early age to not be racist, and therefore we internalize these feelings and gloss over the issues that encompass race and racism. When confronted with the issue directly, Menlo students shut down and are unable to have reasonable discussions about this verboten topic. It is my sincere hope that Menlo follows up on the issue of racism in the 21st century and plans a panel discussion where we can discuss race as a community. Discussion, rather than one-hour long lectures, is ultimately the vehicle of change.
