Shh.

In her essay, "What Might Have Been," Jaime Cone recounts her experiences of learning the details of her birth mother's life. She was given a glimpse of what so many of us wonder about: what would we be like if we'd had different parents?

When she was 24, Cone's mother gave her a file folder full of information on her adoption and the time leading up to it. Many of Cone's discoveries were difficult ones. Her biological family's life was vastly different that her adoptive family's. Her mother struggled with apparent mental health issues, a fact that haunted Cone. In the end, Cone writes: 

 A part of me hates the file and wishes it never existed. But some bits I treasure, and I read them over as a mental salve when the rest of it leaves me feeling depressed. Not only does it help me understand my parents’ attitude toward my biological family, it reminds me of how truly lucky I am: how my life could have been different had my adoptive parents not endured years of uncertainty and stressful battles in trying to legally make me their child. 

Often we are told that the truth will set us free. But are there ever times when that is not the case? When facts cloud or obfuscate our understanding? Consider Cone's experience of increasing self doubt after reading about her mother's instability. Are there things we are better off not knowing?

Many times, after learning a hard truth, that a partner has cheated, or a parent has lived a lie, we feel that we are better off knowing the truth. But are we?

Is silence ever best?

~Emily Helck, GSAS, 2012

Tom Seidmann Freud (nee Martha Freud), 1912

Students Say Response to Racism at Fordham Not Enough

On Tuesday, February 7^th, a racial slur was written in permanent marker on the door of a black student’s room in a Fordham University residence hall. Student newspaper The Ram first reported the incident on February 15^th. Two days later, the Senior Vice President for Student Affairs Jeffrey K. Gray released a community-wide email condemning the incident. “There is no place in our community for behavior of this nature,” he wrote, assuring that the administration would “address this situation in a constructive manner that will serve our community well.”

However, many students have questioned just how well Fordham administration has addressed the situation. According to an interview in the student publication the paper, the response wasn’t enough. The student whose door the slur was written on believes the administration is staying defensively silent. “‘[VP Gray’s email] doesn’t even name the behavior! Are you talking about racist behavior? Or some other kind of behavior? And why won’t you name what it is?’”

the paper also published “An Open Letter to My Fordham Family” in which “A Black Student Demanding to be Heard” anonymously describes his or her reaction to the incident:

“First, I was shocked and in complete disbelief. Then, I felt upset, angry, and even betrayed by a community I loved so dearly that I even called it my second family. Now…now I’m just scared. I’m scared for my security on this campus as a student of color.”

What would it mean to suddenly be afraid of a place you call a home? Can you still consider it a home?

What happens when a harmful voice is heard and the response is not loud enough?

~ Kim Naples, FCRH '13

 

The Bill of Silence

Silence has a price.

It’s something we’ve been taught since grade school--that some of the world’s worst atrocities are allowed, even condoned, by the silence of the masses. It’s something we New Yorkers hear everyday on our subway rides home--“If you see something, say something.”

But in elementary and middle schools in Tennessee, silence is replacing dialogue in counselors’ offices. In classrooms. In communities.

In accordance with the new “Don’t Say Gay” bill, teachers and counselors are prohibited from discussing any form of sexuality that doesn't comply with heteronormative, reproduction-oriented standards. 

At the same time, some legislators are petitioning to allow students to openly protest and condemn homosexuality in accordance with their religious beliefs--allowing comments like “You’re going to hell” to fall under school sanction.

The right to speak is taken away.

Questions are asked and ignored. 

Classmates, teachers, and counselors become mute judges.

In a world of silence and anonymity, how can an individual educate herself? Protect herself? Love herself? 

~ Sarah Brunstad, GSAS, 2013

Illustrating the Underground: In Memory of Anthony Horton

“Always carry a light” was one of Anthony Horton’s maxims. Until he died in a track fire on February 6, 2012, Anthony was one of the New Yorkers, sometimes referred to as “mole people,” who make their home in the subway system (a way of life Marc Singer explored in his striking 2000 documentary Dark Days).

Many people in this city treat the homeless as mute, faceless bundles, stepping over blanket-wrapped bodies without looking down. But Anthony was neither mute nor faceless; he liked to hum Luther Vandross and talk boxing with booksellers.

What’s more, he wasn’t technically homeless. He converted a dark tunnel on the F Line into a surprisingly sophisticated home, including a living room and bedroom decorated with his own artwork.

Anthony’s life in the tunnels inspired his paintings and drawings (made from fax machine ink found in trash cans), and even a graphic novel, Pitch Black. As his Pitch Black co-creator Youme Landowne sees it, “He drew himself and the subways and things from his imagination, kind of a better world.”

Anthony forced people to see and hear him by expressing his underground existence through art. How do we ensure that everyone in our community is seen and heard? 

~ Caroline Hagood, GSAS '16

Residence on Earth

This is our one precious planet. We’re not going to get another Earth (no, Newt, not even on the moon). We can all go #green at the grocery store, but if we’re truly invested in this place we share, we must eventually rebuild our relationship with it, our habits, our principles, and even our homes.

  Simon Dale's Low Impact Woodland Home

When is longing destructive? What does it mean to destroy one’s own home? How can longing lead to renewal? Does our future look anything like our past?

Can we write as if the Earth matters?

~ Sarah Grimm, GSAS, 2012