Word: hernandez
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...admirable battle to "stop bigotry and racism" at Harvard, Assistant Dean for Minority Affairs and Race Relations Hilda Hernandez-Gravelle has found a new and unfortunate target: Harvard's Dining Services...
Cafeteria workers, Hernandez-Gravelle maintains, were "insensitive" to "people of color" and women because they invited students to "join in a night of nostalgia celebrating" the "fabulous," "fun" and "carefree" 1950s...
...Hernandez-Gravelle had her way, we would do away with nostalgia. If she's correct, then it is wrong to romanticize the past, for every decade has its blemishes and every year its flaws. Twenty years from now, it will be insensitive to be nostalgic about the 1980s, to remember these college days as "fabulous," "fun" or "carefree". Without a doubt, this decade has been "painful, complicated, and even life threatening" for the gay community, for the homeless and for the millions of Americans living in poverty...
...PERHAPS Hernandez-Gravelle is right in that sense to denounce nostalgia. But she could oppose romanticizing the past without singling out employees who are only trying to enliven an otherwise mundane evening meal. Students enjoy '50s night and other special meals, and they appreciate the extra efforts of the dining hall employees...
...dean was wrong to publicly renounce the workers, to accuse them of subtle if unintentional racism. By focusing on divisive theoretical questions, such as whether nostalgia inevitably constitutes racism and sexism, Hernandez-Gravelle merely diverts our attention from the far more important issues of minority faculty recruitment and University divestment...