When we think about Minnesota, the history of a people is often omitted. Long before colonialism made its way to this land, it was home to the Dakota people among other Native nations. The Dakota today continue to reaffirm their history and ties to this place that they originally called…
Viewpoint
My gut response is no. As a black man who has attend¬ed a primarily white high school who is now attending a primarily white college, I can scream to the hills for ages about the merits of diversity. Colleges shouldn’t be anything but diverse. The very foundation of a college…
Carleton, like any self-respecting Liberal Arts college, pays lip service to diversity. That is true inside the classroom as well as outside it. I remember that when I was applying to colleges, Carleton, again like peer institutions, made a big deal of describing its distribution requirements for graduation. They guarantee,…
As a member of the generation who is coming of age in these early days of climate-related disasters, I was intrigued by Tim Duane’s provocatively titled convocation speech, “Four Score and Seven Years Ago: Reflecting on the Climate Crisis in 2075.” To sell his key points, Duane used a rhetorical…
I am deeply afraid of my heart beating inside my body. It beats harshly, loudly; I get scared hearing it slave away at making my body breathe, move, think—almost as if neither party deserves the other. It feels unnatural. Let me try to clarify why this is. This has been…
Let me paint you a picture: it is 2016 in the Green Mountain State. Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic presidential nomination. The streets are filled with signs, the cars are plastered with bumper stickers, Facebook feeds burst with endorsements—for Bernie Sanders. Don’t get me wrong. There are many in…
As someone passionate about food and its intersection with environmental and economic justice, I was thrilled to learn that Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, an agronomist and the CEO of the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, was scheduled to speak at convocation this past Friday. A member of the Fair Trade Federation and founder of…
Freedom of ideas doesn’t mean what it should mean. At Carleton and other peer institutions, most of them liberal, liberal arts colleges (and I mean “liberal” in the literal sense, valuing liberty), people all the way from administrators to students center the importance of sharing ideas. This is noble in…
According to a poll taken after the most recent viewing party of the Democratic Debate, hosted by Carleton Democrats, Elizabeth Warren is the preferred candidate of Carleton College. She received 112 votes from Carleton Democrats which to put in perspective, Bernie Sanders, another favored candidate at Carleton, only received 35…
Actually that is absolutely not true, but for some reason it feels true. To me, Pete Buttigieg represents some of the worst impulses in American politics— false commitment, elitism, neoliberalism, and deceit. But then again, so do the vast majority of candidates. Actually, most of them feel like terrible options,…