November Letter from the Editor

In the spring of 1970, on the steps of Low, Jean Genet spoke at a political rally to a mass of Columbia students, declaring his support for the Black Panther Party. In the crowd was Edward Said, whose account of the scene has been replaying in my mind as of late. Said describes a vivid contrast between Genet’s language in French and that of a student of his who stood beside him, gleefully translating into English:

“Genet would say, for example, ‘The Blacks are the most oppressed class in the United States.’ This would emerge in the translator’s colorful ornamentation as something like ‘In this mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch country, in which reactionary capitalism oppresses and fucks over all the poeople, not just some of them, etc., etc.,’”

It’s one of those moments I wish The Blue and White would have been around to report on (though I guess Edward Said does a decent job of it himself). When we return to the 1968 protests, we focus on macro-level comparisons; rarely do we hone in on moments of humor, ones that capture the heightened language of a unique generational fervor. This gem of Columbia history paints a portrait of an in-between time analogous to our own—Said, two years out from the protests of ’68, and us, coming up on two years after the spring 2024 encampments, still puzzling out how we will define this moment for posterity, and with what words.

In this issue, our writers read into the past to find a vocabulary to make sense of the present. Magda Griffel heads to the archives, interrogating the narratives the University has built around ’68 and pondering what historical memory may have in store for us. Sayuri Govendar details the connections between the history of Patriot Act enforcement and current surveillance of international student protesters at Columbia.

Today, it seems, we rage against a new machine—cellphones. In her feature on the Columbia Lamp Club, Abby Owens stumbles upon a world of gnomes, iPhone-bashing, and manifestos in a language not so far from that of Said’s student. Hyperbole can be a powerful political tool—and one not easily contained. Eli Baum points us to The Washington Free Beacon, an inflammatory right-wing publication that, despite its outlandish presentation, wields genuine sway over the Columbia administration. In a similar vein, Althea Downing-Sherer laments the dominance of the religious right in American political discourse, arguing for a progressive reading of Christianity.

At The Blue and White, our challenge is to cut through the noise; to bring you news that preserves and portrays the color of our moment without succumbing to reductionism or sensationalism. That means bringing to light unsung injustices: Natalie Buttner investigates the unceremonious firing of 77 Barnard employees, while Erica Lee brings us the story of GS students relocated from their housing assignments in Nuss and Fairholm. You’d be hard pressed to find students alongside world-renowned intellectual celebrities decrying ‘this mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch University’ in the name of laid-off staff workers or displaced students—but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention.

Yet too often, we define Columbia generations in terms of our battles, forgetting the many triumphs coming from our community. On a surprising frontier of Columbia life, Sepp Zammuto profiles Matt Hiroto Inaba, CC ’29, who broke the North American speedcubing record this month and is establishing a training ground for aspiring cubers at Columbia. Nnema Épée-Bounya celebrates Barnard professor Monica Miller’s Met exhibition on Black fashion and its accompanying film screening at Metrograph. 

In lieu of a Blue and White reporter, Said asked Genet what he thought of the student’s ostentatious interpretation. “I may not have said those things,” Genet remarked, “but, je les pensais.” So if ever we stray into the verbose or get lost in mixed metaphor, I hope, at the very least, that we succeed in faithfully capturing the sentiment of this moment we find ourselves in—that we get around to saying what you’re thinking.

Maya Lerman

Editor-in-Chief