“I’ve read a column by a seemingly conservative white student explaining what is and isn’t acceptable protest (as if a conservative white student in this era would know about the interests of the black community in the 1960s and the means to attain those objectives).”

— “Running the Risk of Whitewashing History,” Opinion, The Sun, April 14th

In 1978 the late humanist Edward Said wrote Orientalism, a hugely influential work exploring the nature of the relationship between East and West. Said posited that for the most part, the West’s representation of the East in art and literature created an uneven power dynamic between the two cultures. This, he argued, resulted in Western notions of superiority over the “subservient” and inferior Eastern cultures that exist even to them day.

The book was a watershed moment in the history of cultural studies. Indeed, today Orientalism is considered essential reading for any serious scholar of the Middle East. Much a post-colonial critique of the West is couched in Said’s terminology.

Though I found many of his arguments to be compelling, I perceived a perturbing underlying message: The ways of the East are foreign to the Westerner and thus never fully comprehensible to him. Any attempts to “know” the East will always fall short.

Rightly or wrongly, I believed Said was telling me to give up. Such, I felt, was contrary to the natural enterprise of history, the attempt to make sense of the past human experience so we are not doomed either to repeat its failures or forget its successes. To Said, my outsider status precluded any true knowledge.

The very same attitude motivated the above-quoted guest columnist, Navid Farnia ’09. Responding to a previous column in which I depicted as unjustifiable certain aspects of the Straight Takeover — hardly an outrageous supposition — Mr. Farnia questioned my legitimacy in making any claims as regards the event, given my status as a “seemingly conservative white student.”

Such a claim, while somewhat absurd, is at the very least thought provoking. How, indeed, can I make such claims about a culture and era of which I have no part? I was clearly not involved with the struggle for “racial justice” in the 1960s; moreover, I am certainly not as attuned to the needs of the black community as are others, namely, the members of that community.

The real question, however, is whether I can ever develop a thorough understanding of events and personalities removed from my immediate realm of knowledge? Let us consider the Takeover. Is it possible that by reading contemporary reports and listening to the stories of those present I can develop a proper appreciation of the events? Would doing so allow me to claim “knowledge” of the events and therefore provide a legitimate basis for commentary?

Certainly, those who paint me as an outsider unjustly commenting on the situation would surely not think so. No matter the extent of the research I would undertake, no matter how many contemporaries I would speak to, I would still never quite “get it.” And in some sense, they would be correct: I am not, nor will I ever be, a black student at Cornell in the 1960s.

By that same metric, however, only black students at Cornell in the 1960s would “get it.” Thus, neither the white students who supported the militants during the takeover nor black students today could legitimately comment on the events. Such, ironically, would also apply to the writer who critiqued me for overstepping my bounds.

A position that so starkly defines the boundaries of speech cannot be said to be serving any useful purpose. Though the protagonists certainly hold an important perspective on the event, they by no means have the only one. Indeed, granting them such an exclusive right would mean consigning to them infallibility typically reserved for religious authorities — effectively closing off our minds.

This is by no means directed only towards those who would sympathize with these historical subjects. Those who reject the actions or arguments put forth by these figures often assume the worst; accordingly, they will let these historical subjects be defined solely by their individual narratives. They, too, reject as inauthentic the context and additional perspectives that provide a broader understanding of any given event. They, too, have cut short any constructive discussion.

I attended the Sun’s panel discussion on the Takeover to avoid sitting mouth agape. Thankfully, neither the panelists nor the moderator were willing to let history be confined to the mythos surrounding the event. The panelists were asked tough questions, and most importantly, often disagreed with one another — a sign of true intellectual engagement.

Argument, then, is the one true remedy to mythology. Such must be employed if our end goal is real understanding. Indeed, holding fast to idealized images of historical figures does an enormous disservice both to them and to us. They lose the complexity that makes them human, while, in abandoning the attempt to relate, to construct real “history,” we lose that which constitutes our humanity.