In the last year or so, students of color and LGBTQ students have been extremely politically active on this campus. This political activity has ranged from a mock funeral for program houses to the movement for the Asian and Asian American Center (A3C), from a display about Palestine on the Arts Quad to a movement to reinstate Ujamaa RHD Ken Glover, and from a battle to gain resources for the LGBT Resource Center to protests demanding student voice. But these are only a few of the movements that students have undertaken on this campus.

At the same time these movements have gone on, the 40th anniversary of The Straight Takeover and subsequently, the 40th anniversary of the Africana Studies and Research Center have been commemorated. The theme developed for Africana is “Looking Back, Moving Forward.” The 16th anniversary of the Day Hall Takeover, which, among other things, enabled the creation of the Latino Living Center (LLC), was also celebrated this year.

This has all happened on a campus where terms such as “self-segregation” dominate the discourse when you talk about anything related to program houses. This is also a campus where Pro-Palestinian voice is seen to be threatening (as evidenced by the vandalism that occurred in response to the creation of the Arts Quad display) and where fraternity students decided to take pictures of Akwe:kon residents from outside their windows.

But while we see these events happening on campus, it is important to understand that this campus is only a microcosm for the rest of society. Battles against racism, sexism, imperialism and heterosexism are being fought in different places all over the world. And these battles do take place on a local scale, a national scale and a global scale. This campus isn’t unique to the types of discrimination that take place. This is true because discrimination is institutionalized.

There are many people out there who don’t want to talk about this kind of stuff. Racism has become an extremely polarizing topic because the discourse about racism on a mainstream level is gone. You say the word “racist” and many people tend to shut down because they just don’t want to hear it. But then the same people who want to eliminate this kind of discourse are all too happy to use words like “self-segregation” which essentially serves the same purpose as “reverse racism.” It takes away any proactive discussion about how to strengthen marginalized groups of people.

For example, on an institutional level, Cornell’s administration has specifically said that one of the things that program houses need on this campus is administrative support. But at the same time, the administration has done absolutely nothing to distinguish this “self-segregation” argument that plagues the campus. The least that the administration could do to address the issue would be to define what “segregation” really is. And I don’t mean to actually look up the word “segregation” in the dictionary, but rather to look at the history and the consequences of segregation in the United States and abroad. An understanding of the history of segregation will immediately eliminate any “self-segregation” argument on this campus because the word segregation cannot apply to anything that is happening on this campus at this point in time. But the administration won’t do this. Cornell’s administration doesn’t even want to confront the issue.

This leads into a broader argument about the connection and relation of marginalized groups. In the spirit of the “Looking Back, Moving Forward” theme, we cannot begin to move forward without an understanding of our past. And this especially applies to marginalized groups. Just think of the saying, “Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.” A closer look at the creation of Ujamaa and of the Latino Living Center will show that their histories share similar characteristics. This is not a coincidence. Ujamaa and LLC are not a result of administrative benevolence. They come from active student movements for their existence. They come from years of this work. And now, the A3C is fighting to get the same footing on this campus. But A3C’s struggle for resources should not be seen in a vacuum. It comes at a time and in a place where the black community is facing the expulsion of Ken Glover from Ujamaa as RHD. In fact, the lack of institutional support for places like Ujamaa and LLC proves to me where Cornell’s administration stands on the issue of A3C. The point is that marginalized communities, and especially communities of color, all face issues that are historically similar, and thus, completely connected. This is why these are racial issues, and it is because of this that communities of color stand to gain a lot by working together. But without any understanding of history, this cannot happen.

We live in a very individualistic society. This is why group identity is such a threat to people in power. Places like Ujamaa are for everyone, not just blacks, but it’s also in places like these where group identity is the strongest. Historically, many Africana and African American Studies programs across the country started out as programs that served their communities outside of the borders of their campuses. But there was eventually a shift away from education that serves the community to a more “traditional” style of campus education. Identity was central to the beginnings of these programs, but once again, group identity is the very thing that threatened the “tradition” of the campus. What is happening now on this campus and everywhere else is not all that different. Group identity, the simple notion of seeing oneself as Latino, Asian, gay, Native American, black or Muslim and thus, seeing oneself as part of a larger group, is really what is under attack.

And once again, this isn’t just a college campus phenomenon. This is an institutional and systemic paradigm that is taking place. We see it on campus, but we tend to separate ourselves from the happenings of the rest of the world. The students who courageously set up the Arts Quad display in reaction to the events in Gaza were acting in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Those students turned an international event into a localized action. Breaking down the institutional problems of our society requires this kind of thinking and acting.

However, it cannot happen without an understanding of our history because it is through history that we learn about ourselves as part of a larger group of people. To move forward, we have to educate ourselves about the struggles of the people who came before us and we have to teach others this history. Without this kind of reflection, we are doomed to repeat our past.

Navid Farnia is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He may be reached at nfarnia@cornellsun.com. Over the “Line” appears alternate Thursdays this semester.