Amherst Soul

I will not provide a gendered analysis of tattoos because they already exist. Instead, I will focus on the art form itself and how it manifests differently in the lives of women who embrace it in society. I am one of these proud women and here is my story, or at least some of it.

The summer after freshman year in college, I got inked for the first time in my life. With my own, hard-earned money, I paid more than $100 to get a tattoo on my upper back. It was impulsive, a decision that many would incorrectly stereotype as being typical of getting a tattoo.

Although I knew exactly why I was getting a quote from my favorite book, my mom quickly disapproved and couldn’t believe I was so immature and careless. My father did not object. He accompanied me to the tattoo parlor in Sunset Park, where I grew up as a child, and the process took no longer than twenty minutes.

Nothing, however, would prepare me for the treatment I received about my tattoo from my supervisor, other family members and peers that summer. Comments such as, “Wow, those are big letters,” “What font is it,” “What does it mean,” “Did it hurt,” Why that quote,” I don’t get it” were the usual questions. I grew accustomed to having my body artwork questioned, interrogated and frowned upon.

I even noticed my supervisor change her attitude towards me. She grew weary of my interactions with students, so much so that at the end of the summer, she pulled me aside and told me I was not a good influence on her students. I could not believe it. I did not get a tattoo to challenge her authority or her college program. I wasn’t trying to challenge anyone, but express myself as the artist/writer I am. Why was I being received so negatively by the people I thought I could trust and depend on for my own personal and professional growth?

How are young women, regardless of their ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, religious or political beliefs, consistently ostracized and stereotyped for having tattoos? I believe any woman reading this article can agree with me that it is difficult enough living as a woman in this world. Can you imagine how much more difficult it becomes when you are stereotyped as “promiscuous, easy, unintelligent, and careless” because of your tattoos?

The question on Debate.org is, “Are tattoos negatively stereotyped in the United States?” One comment on the disagree side resonated with me: “Because anyone who discriminates against someone who has made the personal choice to get a tattoo (as long as it isn't a swastika, etc.) is just as bad as someone discriminating against someone who has made the personal choice to be a Christian, Jew, or Muslim and I believe that is dead wrong.” I couldn’t agree more with this comforting sentiment.

But after reviewing some of the comments in response to this contentious topic, I stumbled upon another article written by Medical Daily’s Lizette Borreli. He complicates the debate even further. According to a University of Texas at San Antonio study, men perceive women with tattoos as more sexually active than those who do not sport them.

However, the author of the study, a psychology student at the university, admits that her results are far from conclusive. She points to the inconsistency among earlier studies about the issue and why it is important for future studies to be mindful of these inconsistences in their gendered analyses of tattoo wearers.

In difference to this study, another article points quite humorously to the meanings behind popular tattoos sported by both men and women in society. Aside from feeling grateful that my tattoo ideas were not on the list, I could not believe the sheer amount of meanings attributed to certain forms of art. For example, one tattoo, the “live, laugh, love” one, dons the following description:

You are the ultimate hunzo of the 2k6 era. You can’t go a day without saying “Yolo” or “Everything happens for a reason.” Marilyn Monroe is probably your idol and you believe living, laughing and loving will get you through life. Good luck with that.

Although there is a part of me that agrees with the above sentiment while holding back a laugh or two, I also believe it is incredibly unfair and insensitive to attach such a general description to said tattoo. Regardless of gender or sexual orientation, people make the decision to get inked for a variety of reasons. I find it hard to believe that every person with the same tattoo was motivated by the same reason.

In Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo, Margot Mifflin explores the inextricable relationship between women and tattooing, specifically focusing on the long history of tattooing among women who worked in circuses, art shows, and county fairs. As a legitimate art form, tattooing dates back to the nineteenth-century. To my amazement, photos of young and old women alike donning full-body pieces pervade the first few pages of the book.

Motivated by different reasons, each woman unashamedly showcases her body for the camera, which stands in stark contrast to the pornographic and provocative photoshoots of women common in magazines today. There is something undeniably beautiful and inspiring about the way they carry themselves in these photos, a clear message to society that their bodies are not for sale or digital enhancement. Mifflin’s work gives a clear face to the many women, tattoo shop owners and artists alike, who make honest, professional lives out of the art form.

Furthermore, it successfully debunks the stereotypes attributed to women who are tattooed by tracing the history of tattooing all the way back to the 1800s. I do not have to hide behind my current tattoos and the others I plan on getting in the future because of the countless women who have paved the way for me to be able to fearlessly own my body and every curve in it. Tattoos included!

Sharline Dominguez ‘17E

"Sunset Park, Brooklyn," captured by Christian Vasquez

While growing up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, the long strip of warehouses along Third Avenue seemed light years away from the brownstone I lived in with my family on Fourth Avenue. My family and I interacted daily with the other Latin@ and Asian immigrants who, like us, came to the United States in hopes of achieving the American dream. The local bodega was where we bought our vegetables and from where we received our daily doses of neighborhood gossip and coffee. Everyone knew each other and there was rarely any fear about having to move out of the neighborhood due to rent hikes, gentrification or even violence.

However, current conversations around development in Sunset Park paint a completely different reality. A visit to this neighborhood today and it is obvious how much the neighborhood has changed since the 1990s. Gentrification is a term frequently thrown around without those affected by the process fully understanding its real and imagined consequences. One recent example is the construction of Industry City between First and Second Avenues in Sunset Park, where industry and innovation are touted as reasons for progress with little communal participation from surrounding immigrant communities.

During the 1950s and 60s, Puerto Ricans settled in Sunset Park, looking for employment opportunities. Unlike their European predecessors, Puerto Ricans experienced substantial discrimination and hostility in the workforce. As a result of this migration, white ethnic groups fled to surrounding suburbs making way for other Latin@ groups to settle in Sunset Park. According to Tarry Hum in her analysis of federal immigration policies on different waves of migration to Sunset Park, “Once predominantly Puerto Rican, Sunset Park’s Latin@ population diversified with the influx of Dominicans followed by Ecuadorians and, most significantly, Mexicans.” The neighborhood’s large Mexican immigrant community also allowed for the expansion of migrant civil society, with nonprofit and advocacy organizations coming to fruition on a local level since the 1960s.Latin@-Asian coalitions formed out of a mutual desire to have a stake in conversations around urban zoning plans proposed by powerful community boards, as well as resist the prospect of residential displacement.

Another relevant example is the “greening” of Sunset Park and its industrial waterfront. Pervasive in these environmental plans is the desire to revitalize and make Sunset Park “productive” again. However, in a neighborhood with highly polarized economic sectors—on one hand, a service sector largely comprised of small businesses run by immigrant families and on the other, a specialized niche manufacturing sector run by more affluent groups—it is difficult to fathom where settlement ends and displacement begins.

By the late 1960s, the Brooklyn Army Terminal and the eight Bush Terminal piers were closed by city officials. These changes caused immigrant workers to immediately lose their jobs. Major city developer Robert Moses implemented capital infrastructure projects that compounded the shutdown of these major port areas, leading to their decline and the concentration of Latin@ poverty in the area.

Fast-forward about forty-six years to 2006 and we see a large-scale reclamation of these warehouses and ports by property owners named Industry City Associates, who are “actively engaged in remaking industrial Sunset Park as part of a creative artisan and high-technology hub.” Planning Commissioner Alex Garvin’s 2006 strategic land-use plan titled, “Visions for New York City: Housing and the Public Realm,” suggested that the newly-renovated Industry City supposedly offers an alternative to pricey Brooklyn neighborhoods.

However, often missing from these calls for industrialization is how to empower existing immigrant communities and allow them the space to become self-sufficient leaders in shaping the future of Sunset Park.

Thus, the most pressing question today for old and new residents as they both witness Industry City slowly rising from the ground is as follows: Can new development and “innovation” co-exist with the “old spirit” that effectively branded Sunset Park as the quintessential global immigrant neighborhood of Brooklyn? I worry that Latin@s living in a changing Sunset Park will eventually find themselves serving a newly-arriving white, affluent population, becoming invisibly trapped in the cycle of poverty and then forced out of their own community. Today, immigrant labor reveals itself through the hopes and dreams of developers in Industry City, a space once regarded as toxic and dilapidated.

Who has a say in the different ways that this new “city within a city” affects local employment rates, expanded access to education or even housing?

How will Industry City effectively encourage younger residents in Sunset Park to pursue careers in socially-oriented art and entrepreneurship in order to uplift their communities?

Are these the kinds of questions being deployed by big-name developers and real estate companies in tandem with the federal government and Mayor De Blasio’s administration?

According to Industry City’s website and its description of its large-scale projects:

While this transformation ushers in the next great phase of Industry City’s existence, the complex continues to emphasize its rich industrial heritage through an authentic aesthetic expression that is at once historical, referential and progressive.

Strategically referring to its awareness of the waterfront’s industrial and commercial history, developers use persuasive language to appeal to their audiences. Upon clicking on the Industry City website for the first time, I was immediately persuaded by its sleek and user-friendly interface. Throughout the site, there is constant mention of “industry,” “twenty-first century innovation” and “rebirth” of a region long forgotten by local residents. The overall promise of progress is incredibly compelling, so much so that I pressed on every single tab on the site.

I was officially hooked on Industry City’s promise of reinventing the wheel in Sunset Park. But as a native of this part of Brooklyn, I noticed little mention of the immigrant community and their businesses on the website. Practically nothing was said about the long history of immigration, service sector jobs and community activism in Sunset Park.

Instead, there is more mention of Jamestown Properties, the Atlanta-based developer behind the Industry City project, and its desire to bring new life to the old manufacturing buildings via the new “innovation economy.” Describing the waterfront project and its vision to Fast Company last year, Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball states, “the physical, digital and engineered products are being driven by this creative class who wants to make things again.” His mention of a “creative class” newly emerging from the far corners of Brooklyn is troubling, particularly since it does not account for the “creative class” of Latin@ and Asian immigrants who already exist and create in Sunset Park.

Largely young, white and middle to upper-class, Kimball’s “creative class” is given priority over those who create, produce and share their art forms to the rest of the community. In a section of her work about the history of Brooklyn and how it eventually became a “cool place,” Sharon Zukin argues, “By the mid-1990s…gritty neighborhoods became a destination for cultural connoisseurs.” Places like Williamsburg, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill attracted young artists priced out of expensive Manhattan seeking creative refuge and solace in Brooklyn, while inner-city areas where blacks and Latin@s lived, were faced with bad housing, failing schools, lack of jobs and high crime rates.

Although Sunset Park has not yet experienced an overall transformation in its “cultural appeal” as much as Williamsburg has, Industry City is certainly the first step in that direction. The earlier reference to an “authentic, aesthetic expression” on Industry City’s website calls attention to Sunset Park’s creative potential lying dormant. Similarly, Zukin points to how “for each generation, the idea of Brooklyn’s authenticity shows an aspiration to connect the place where people live to a timeless urban experience.” The significance of authenticity and a certain kind of aesthetic generally frames the larger conversation around Industry City and its need to exist and ultimately revamp the aging, immigrant neighborhood of Sunset Park.

David Beilinson’s Battle for Brooklyn (2011) also provides a compelling perspective on the grueling tug-of-war between ordinary, Brooklyn citizens living downtown and technocrats such as then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the borough president Marty Markowitz and Charles Schumer. The film follows the political conflict that arose when the Atlantic Yards project was introduced in 2003 with the cooperation of Bruce Ratner, the CEO and President of Forest City Ratner. Justifications of Brooklyn becoming a “world-class city” colored every proposal for the project, specifically with the construction of more than ten skyscrapers and the Barclays Center, a giant sports arena for the New York Nets.

Local residents, community activists, NYC assembly and council members repeatedly denounced the plan and formed their own coalitions to combat these large-scale development plans. The film shows Brooklyn natives chanting “Develop—Don’t Destroy Brooklyn,” decrying eminent domain as an abusive practice in a time when more than a sports arena, the downtown Brooklyn area needed better schools, housing and healthcare systems.

Unfortunately, grassroots activism efforts did not win the war so that on March 1st 2010, all residential and non-residential properties were seized by the city and Ratner. But today, only the Barclay’s Center, which was only one component of the original footprint, has been built.

At the end, the film evokes the David vs. Goliath metaphor to describe how gentrification and its corresponding “innovative” and “industrializing” projects work in tandem to destroy vulnerable populations, who often resist exploitative projects in their communities but do not recognize them early enough to halt them in their tracks.

The David vs. Goliath metaphor begs two final questions of me: Is gentrification inevitable? And can it be tampered or slowed down by community activists as it is radically reshaping the city I’ve grown to know and love so much?

Perhaps I will return to Sunset Park and not be able to afford the rent in my own community. White gentrifiers may have already purchased that other brownstone I used to live in on 56th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues with my family. But at least I know I am well-aware of how and why Sunset Park is (and will continue to be) a global, multicultural community built on the backs of European, Latin@ and Asian immigrants.

The most striking difference between me and white gentrifiers is that I have old roots buried deeply in Sunset Park. My attachment to this place is more meaningful than that of those who live here for a couple of months, become more aware of their privilege and stand in solidarity with social issues faced by immigrant communities.

DASAC takes on the Running Man Challenge! 

After their performance, DASAC (Dance and Step at Amherst College) members recap their pieces before taking on the Running Man! Skip to 1:45 to watch just the Running Man dance challenge! 

Not sure what’s going on? Learn about the history of the #RunningManChallenge here: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/running-man 

Asian Students Association

To whom it may concern:

Students of Asian heritage at Amherst College – from international students to Asian American students, spanning East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, and Pacific regions – demand to be seen by the institution and supported in all of our heterogeneity. Asian students at Amherst College have felt perpetually out-of-place on this campus. Isolated from the predominantly Caucasian population and left out of the calls for support of “black and brown bodies” (which match our South Asian peers, but are not necessarily meant to apply), Asian students have struggled to find where we fit both in racial discourse and in Amherst College spaces. This two-ended bind of Asian identity has made it difficult for students to comprehend our place and to comprehend ourselves.

When asked to mediate on their experiences at Amherst College and with Amherst Uprising, Asian students navigated a complex series of emotions, expressing both strong support of their fellow students of color and strong feelings of confusion, in-between-ness, and alienation. One Asian American student powerfully reflects on her experience in an AC Voice article titled “Dear Amherst Uprising (https://acvoice.com/2015/11/17/dear-amherst-uprising/):

I am drawn to Amherst Uprising not just out of compassion for groups different from my own, but out of an intuitive sense that my experience is also connected. But at the same time, I am kept from seamlessly falling into the movement. I sense that my struggle is somehow distinct, but I have trouble articulating why. I am left feeling in-between and paralyzed. I waver in and out of Frost. I waver in and out of the movement. I do not know where to be.

The question of identity faced by this student and by the estimated 250 students of Asian heritage at Amherst College has been made bearable by the presence and support of Asian Pacific American mentors. However, the number of Asian Pacific American faculty members at Amherst College is few and far between. The presence of Asian Pacific American faculty and staff that adequately reflects the diversity of region, gender, class, and sexuality is severely lacking. Support for students of Asian heritage begins with academic support. It means increasing the number of Asian Pacific American professors. It means offering more than one Asian Pacific American course each semester. It means having an Asian Pacific American presence in various departments, so we are not just seen by ourselves, but we are seen by others too.

The current state of APA (Asian Pacific American) studies courses and APA faculty at Amherst College is limited. During this spring semester, the only APA studies course offered is a 15-person American Studies seminar taught by Professor Odo, who has a two year visiting professorship. In the fall, there were only two APA studies courses offered: a first year seminar taught by Professor Hayashi and an American Studies seminar taught by Professor Odo. Amherst College is plagued by both a lack of Asian American studies courses and a lack of diversity in those offered. Currently, there are no South or Southeast Asian American professors teaching Asian American content. There are no Pacific Islander professors teaching Pacific Islander content. The future of Asian American studies at Amherst College appears even bleaker. In the 2017-2018 academic year, when Professor Odo will reach the end of his contract and Professor Hayashi will go on sabbatical, there will be no APA professors teaching APA content at Amherst College.

The lack of Asian Pacific American (APA) studies at Amherst College, in no way, indicates a lack of interest among the student body. In fact, despite the lack of faculty and courses teaching Asian Pacific American studies, Asian and Asian American students have taken it upon themselves to pursue theses, independent projects, and special topics courses in the field of APA studies.

One such student is Kiko Aebi ’16 who wrote an art history thesis on photography surrounding Japanese American incarceration camps titled Visions of Relocation and Remembrance: Intergenerational Visual Representations of the Japanese American Concentration Camps. She faced difficulty in pursuing this topic that was personally important to her, her grandparents having been incarcerated, but institutionally unsupported at Amherst College. Kiko explains how her art history advisors, although very helpful with theory, “didn’t know the history” and therefore, “didn’t know the questions to ask” and “couldn’t fact check.” In writing her thesis, Kiko relied on Franklin Odo, a widely-respected scholar on Japanese American history. She states the importance of not just his knowledge of the history and his ample connections within the academic world, but also his own personal connection to the material. Commenting on a course taught by Professor Odo called “Race and Public History/Memory,” Kiko expressed how it “didn’t feel like a class” and how meaningful it was to be taught this history by “someone who was also invested in the history.” Reflecting on her thesis, Kiko describes this deeply personal exploration of her family and history as “one of the most significant things that I’ve undertaken in my life.”

Another such student is Jenny Li ’16 who wrote an English thesis consisting of two short stories, “Love in Many Languages” and “From Mother to Daughter,” and a digital play, Golden Tears Will Guide Me. In these creative works, Jenny smoothly and poignantly traverses complexities in Asian immigrant and Asian American experiences. Her three stories speak to the language barriers faced by Asian immigrants, intergenerational conflict, and views of mental health in Asian and Asian American communities. Prior to her senior year, having read only one Asian American novel in an Amherst College English class, Jenny initially planned on making her main character of her creative writing thesis racially ambiguous. However, after reading the Asian American novel Everything I Never Told You on her own, she felt that “I finally had some kind of voice. I finally had something meaningful to write about.” While undertaking her thesis, Jenny relied on her English advisor for creative writing advice, but sought the knowledge of Professor Odo who provided her with the historical grounding for her stories and informed her of important Asian American literary works to reference. Following the writing of her thesis, Jenny found that her project allowed her not just to understand herself better, but also to improve her relationship with her parents, as creative writing allowed her to embody the mindset of Asian immigrant characters.

These individual accounts are just two examples of the frustration felt by students who fail to find professors invested in the same histories as them and the affirmation felt by students who realize that their histories are worth learning about. These testimonies explain what it means to have professors who share experiences with them. For these students, the presence of an Asian American professor transcends the realm of academia and the walls of a classroom. Having an Asian American professor validates one’s perspective, one’s voice, and one’s place. The simple fact of having a professor who looks like you secures one with the knowledge that there is someone looking out for you. In an environment where students of Asian heritage often feel unsupported, the grounding that professors can provide is essential.

An increased presence of Asian Pacific American professors at Amherst College is not only beneficial for a niche number of students of Asian heritage. As expressed in the Board of Trustee’s Statement on Diversity, “teaching and learning at their best are conversations with persons other than ourselves about ideas other than our own.” For non-Asian students, Asian American histories, perspectives, and experiences can foster a greater understanding between students of different backgrounds.

When Amherst College fails to support Asian Pacific American faculty and Asian Pacific American courses, it sends a message to all students that Asian Pacific American identity is not important and Asian Pacific American history is not worth learning. When Amherst College sends such a powerful message that whites out Asian identities and nullifies Asian American histories, it is no question as to why students of Asian heritage feel “oppressed, lost, in between, without skin, vulnerable, and waging a war” (Dear Amherst Uprising). With this letter, students of Asian heritage at Amherst College refuse to be invisible any longer and we demand that the institution to support us.

With respect,

PC: Roshana Hercules ‘16

On behalf of the whole staff of Amherst Soul, I want to say how honored we feel to know that Mercedes has looked to us to share her voice with our campus and the world. We’ve already published two incredible essays by Mercedes so far since our founding (Check out “YOU Are a Lord Jeff” from 2014 and “My Melanin Is Not a Myth, It’s Your Nightmare” from 2015!). 

As a writer, scholar, activist, and leader, Mercedes has been a critical contributor to ongoing conversations on campus about how Amherst can live up to the promises of its mission and vision by celebrating and supporting the diversity of our community. Mercedes, we know that even when you graduate and begin to revolutionize other communities, the next generation of Amherst students will still be able to look toward your legacy for inspiration as they create change on this campus. 

Later in life, in between saving the world and being an amazing human being, we hope you’ll one day share your reflections with Soul again as an alum! 

-Matt Randolph ‘16, General Manager of Amherst Soul

Before we share her Senior Assembly Speech with you, let us share how we were collectively blown away by her brilliance...

How we felt before Mercedes’s Speech:  

How we felt after Mercedes’s Speech:  

Mercedes MacAlpine ‘16 

Hello everyone! Before we start, I would like to thank the faculty, and staff who are gathered here, as well as the non-seniors crashing this event. All jokes aside, your unwavering support is largely why we sit here today, so thank you.

To my fellow seniors: there are many things that unite us. One of them is a specific quality of our class: a sense of ambition or a unique forward momentum, and for each of us this looks different. For some people, it’s located more predominantly in academics, or their sport, or in saving the world. If you’re Christopher Tamasi, it’s all of the above.

But for my friends and I freshman year, it was the rap game.

We’d been looking for an indoor and inexpensive way to celebrate a friend’s birthday, and pre-renovation Keefe held few opportunities: video games were out because of the “poor sportsmanship” I’d shown while playing “Viva Piñata”, and pool was too boring. Like most works of genius, it started from nothing: a haiku here, a little iambic pentameter there.

Once Keefe closed and we’d relocated to the Stearns first floor things got serious. It was 4:13am and we were still going strong. I’d moved from production work to writing a verse myself, and several “free beats” and malware scares later, we’d decided to spit our bars acapella over snaps, stomps, and some dope original melodies.

If there’s something professors and seniors can agree on it’s that rarely does quality work come from all-nighters, particularly when the only thing standing between you and a completed assignment are your eyelids and your standards, both of which keep dropping at an alarming rate. However, once you pass that point of exhaustion and enter into straight delirium anything is possible. One by one we traveled to the realm of sleep-deprived pseudo-clarity, and became legends in our own minds.

High on my own imagined success, I delivered a speech, and it went something like this: “Look around you! Once this track drops, y’all, it’s not gonna be the same. Do you know how far we’ve come? Do you know what we’ve just accomplished? People have tried it before us, sure, but we’re the next big thing. Young Money? More like Old News. This is it, this is all there is, and for anyone who’s doubted us, for anyone who said we couldn’t do it: dawg, we’re here. I hope y’all are ready to stop flipping textbooks and start popping bottles, because we’re leaving this life behind”.

Several naps later, we reconvened for the much anticipated first listen of the raw track. We had friends and family on-call, ready to arrange for Facebook shares and an iTunes release date, and our future fame hung in the balance. And the song was, in no small terms, utter audio garbage. It was literally the worst thing I have ever had to listen to in my life, and the hot, blistering, shame I felt hearing the sound of my emotional, freshman voice was like nothing else I had ever experienced before.

A performance by Irisdelia Garcia '18 at the first annual Amherst Soul Showcase in the Powerhouse at Amherst College. March 26th, 2016.

Here are some reflections from participants of Amherst Soul’s first ever writing workshop. Each participant had roughly eight minutes to write a reflection that speaks to one of Amherst Soul’s three themes (community, diversity, and identity). Stay tuned because we intend to host a couple more writing workshops before the semester comes to an end! 

“I remember doing a photo campaign shot with Romina for a photography class she was taking last semester. This was post-Amherst Uprising, and so tensions were high everywhere on campus. Tension and anger ceased to be only emotions for me—they became words that would form sentences all over my body. Like a tattoo, permanent and exposed to the elements whenever I would take my clothes off and look at my angry, brown self in the mirror. I single-handedly found a sense of clarity that years of mentoring before college could not do. And that clarity was in realizing that I was meant to speak for and represent those without a voice. But not in a condescending kind of way—never that.”

--Sharline Dominguez ‘17E

“When my adult teeth grew in, I acquired a gap right in the center of my smile. My gap was quite big, I could stick capri-sun straws through it, and it was a distinguishing feature by which my friends and family identified me. However, I never considered it a permanent part of myself. I always wanted braces because I didn’t think I could be considered pretty with a gap. I never saw any pretty girls with gaps. The lack of diversity in TV shows and children’s books when I was growing up made me believe that there was one standard I had to strive for. That anything else was ugly, fat, abnormal, other. Now things have changed. While shopping online I see more models with gaps, and companies are making an effort to include more POC in commercials. But why is it taking so long?”

--Eden Lynch ‘18

"I remember someone saying that a white man brings no diversity to a community. At first, this assertion seems perfectly valid but if we think critically about what it suggests, that some people have or do not have diversity, we feed into the idea that diversity is a commodity exclusively possessed by the disenfranchised and marginalized. Instead, shouldn’t diversity be imagined as people from different walks of life coming together to form a more dynamic whole? So, yeah, maybe white men have the most social privilege, but I’m afraid to claim that they can’t contribute to the diversity of a community. There is a danger in calling one group of people more “diverse” than another. Individuals don’t have diversity on their own, but they generate it in relation to their interaction and presence with others. I want to live in a world where diversity isn’t just a politically correct way of saying people of color. I want to live in a world where diversifying a community doesn’t mean taking away something from those in power but instead enriching both their lives as well as those who are marginalized."

A performance by Whitney Beber '16 at the first annual Amherst Soul Showcase in the Powerhouse at Amherst College. March 26th, 2016.

Sharline Dominguez ‘17E

A performance by Amherst College's own student band "The Black Condition" at the first annual Amherst Soul Showcase in the Powerhouse at Amherst College. March 26th, 2016. Featuring Warren Thimothe '18, Michael Dwyer '18, Manny Osunlana '18, Amal Buford '19, Gregory Clark '19, Joshua White-Jamison '19, and Isaiah Lewis '19.

The first ever Amherst Soul writing workshop is designed for students from all class years, who are interested in contributing to the Amherst Soul publication but don’t know where to start. Come to learn more about overcoming writer’s block, different writing styles and even the Soul “self-editing” process! Workshop place and time? Wednesday, March 30th at 7PM in 300A Merrill (one of the glass rooms in the Science Library). GLAZED Donuts will be provided! Amherst Soul Staff Writer Sharline Dominguez '17E will host the workshop. Co-sponsorship from the AAS, the WGC, the MRC and the QRC. 

To register: http://goo.gl/forms/cpWiLI6jmq

Check out the event on Facbeook: 

A performance by dancing duo Darienne Madlala '16 and Catie Downey '16 at the first annual Amherst Soul Showcase in the Powerhouse at Amherst College. March 26th, 2016.

Daejione Jones ‘15 

Conor Brown ‘16

Like most students on campus, Amherst Uprising had a profound effect on me. My peers’ feelings of extreme betrayal, suffering, pain, anger, and loneliness shook me to the core. Amherst Uprising brought a new level of awareness to everyone who participated. Hearing my peers tell real stories about their lives opened my eyes to the adversity they face on a daily basis. After processing these events, I turned to my close friend and teammate Louie Reed. Together, we spent hours somberly discussing everything from the events sweeping our campus and country to his personal experiences as a black male. We asked ourselves, why do we seem to have so much diversity at Amherst, yet fail to truly be diverse? As well, how is it possible that students of all backgrounds feel so lonely, isolated and excluded in an environment and culture that is supposedly open and welcoming?

Exhausting these topics, our discussion turned to solutions and what we could do to help. True change needs to come from students. Creating an environment and culture that genuinely relishes our diverse student body and includes everyone will inevitably fail if students do not commit to making it a reality.  Too often, we embrace the comfort of our own personal bubbles, hanging out with the same friends and following the same daily routines. I am as guilty of this as the next student. However, there is something wrong with this. On our campus, there exists an incredible diversity of people with equally diverse experiences. Think about all the potential opportunities, experiences, and friendships you will miss out on if you don’t push your boundaries and step outside of your comfort zone. You risk missing the opportunity to enrich your peers and yourself by failing to forge these friendships.

When thinking about the obstacles preventing this open and inclusive culture from emerging at Amherst, it is pretty clear that students are willing to meet new people and build new friendships. After the sit-in and the Uprising, students listened to their peers and clamored to help in any way they could. Students’ efforts to improve the culture at Amherst were not limited by lack of effort; they were limited by lack of time. Amherst College students have the unfortunate blessing of having more work and commitments than we have time in the day to tackle. Given an easier way to meet new students with lower time commitments, Louie and I believed students would continue the momentum created during the sit-in to create the culture we all want and deserve. After speaking with my first year roommate, Patrick DeVivo, (who I probably would not have met if we were not roommates) we created the idea for Meetum.

For those who have not heard, Meetum is a social networking app aiming to catalyze cultural change at Amherst College by bringing students together. For those who have, I am truly sorry for shamelessly pushing the app and bombarding you with messages. I solemnly promise you will only hear it a few hundred more times! Meetum is a platform where students can post all types of events ranging from pick-up basketball and Mario Kart to studying in the library and attending an Amherst Symphony Orchestra concert. All events are posted with the intent of meeting new students. By inviting the entire Amherst College community of students to attend events you also plan on attending, the requisite time spent trying to meet new people can be drastically decreased. We believe Meetum allows students to take ownership of their experience and create the culture Amherst students have demonstrated they desperately want.

Today, Meetum has over 700 Amherst users and over 100 total events created. However, we all still have work to do and Meetum cannot be a success until every Amherst student is willing to put themselves in the position to meet new people and change campus culture for the better. We have the power to successfully change our culture and it is my sincere hope that our time at Amherst will not be defined by our GPAs, our championships, or other accolades, but by the friendships and late night Dominos pizza pies we share together. Will Meetum solve all of our problems here at Amherst and create the change we want overnight? No, probably not, but it is a start.

Conor Brown is part of the Meetum Team and a member of the Amherst College student body.

For iPhone users go to http://download.meetum.io/ and click the icon to direct you to the app store.

For all other users go to http://meetum.io.

Amal Buford ‘19

Richard Figueroa ‘18