Well, just in time for Christmas, the Brunswick Town Council will tonight take up the issue of establishing a Race and Gender Task Force at the request of Chair Brayman, responding to an all hands meeting on such issues held earlier this month.
Given what’s going on nationally, and on the local campus, this should come as no surprise.
But there is some irony to be appreciated. Does anyone deny that Bowdoin, as a member of a small set of elite, small, highly selective liberal arts colleges, cherishes it’s exclusiveness? Remember “what is Brunswick without Bowdoin -- nothing!”? How fitting then that inclusiveness is one of the primary cudgels used to demand something…anything…to show we all care.
As we showed in a recent post….it’s all about muscle, or more succinctly, power.
Anyone with even a modest amount of awareness of the politics in our perfect little town knows that Bowdoin plays a subtle and not so subtle role in our local governance. From any number of perspectives, including tax exemptions, various benevolent deals, etc.
Well now the student body is about to expand its influence in an anything but subtle way, as they demand appeasement from us all to respond to whatever grievances they can concoct, real or not. After all, it’s not the facts that matter, it’s the seriousness of the charges.
Here the learners on campus are show pleading with now former President Barry Mills on an issue near and dear to them, and which Mills, coming from Wall Street roots as he did, and in consideration of the super high-performing Bowdoin Endowment, pretty much stone-walled.
Now a new man, President Clayton Rose, is barely unpacked, and has to face something far more basic. If things work out right, the Polar Cubs may demand he do a Polar Bear dip on his way out of office.
On Pages 49 & 50 of the town council packet…http://www.brunswickme.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Agenda-Packet-Dec-21-2015.pdf….you’ll find the material inserted below.
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Seems to us the trap is now set. Do you really think a group like this will be able to conclude that nothing needs to be done, and that the town is not part of the problem?
Who are we kidding? If the town, acting through this Race and Gender Task Force, does not take ‘decisive, corrective action,’ it will be derided as a symbol of macro-aggression, paternalism, gender blindness, sexism, and white-privilege. We’ll be considered clueless and lacking in fundamental human self-awareness.
Marches should soon follow, led, we suppose, by the more sensitive members of Bowdoin’s faculty.
Eldridge, Rizzo, Brayman and other symbols of Brunswick’s privileged establishment need to watch their words and their six. Safe spaces need to be allocated to every in-town block, and those mentioned will soon be looking for political safe-space.
The way we see it, a mis-step or two here, and there could be demands for their resignation, if only to show proper respect and fealty, and repentance for their leading roles in historic, systemic oppression and insensitivity. They’ll have to be the sacrificial lambs acting as symbols of the thousands of the rest of us.
This is going to be such fun to watch. Squirming, running for cover, political posturing, word-smithing, etc.
Who knows, the council might even call Johnny Protocols back into service; he comes as close as anyone in this town to having the right skills for this job.
He’s a bit of a Houdini when it comes to such things. Though considering he plans to run for State Senate next year, it may be more of a gamble than he’s willing to take.
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