I actually have read this article beforehand - it was one of the ones to which I alluded in my first post on this thread - and talked about it with many of my friends, and had more widespread discourse about it in Paresky center. It was widely agreed by all parties that she was not only being needlessly incendiary in her language - insulting people who have an opposing viewpoint from hers (the “you are the worst form of tokenism” line, which I have heard neither before nor since) - but, too, her argument was based around the very same kind of excuses that she claimed white people made in trying to claim that they were not being offensive (the initial point about how she has white friends, and so is not racist, but then goes on to insult the morality of those people who do the same). I want to stress that these are not my personal opinions that I am expressing, but rather the opinions of every single person with whom I discussed this article. While she and her culture certainly have been wronged - there is no doubting that - most of her peers and fellow Latin@s disagree with the level of anger with which she composed her response to the appropriatizing act. I would not make the jump that the feelings that she expressed are emblematic of those of the rest of the people at Williams, and certainly not in the group of 50-odd people with whom I had discourse on the article. Again, this group was not just my friends, but also a more organic group of people discussing it in Paresky, with people of every race involved - in fact, it was around 2/3 people of color. While this group may have been singularly content with their lot at Williams, or comprised entirely of people who embody “the worst form of tokenism”, I don’t think that it’s fair to use this article as a perfect exposé of the feelings and thoughts of all people of color.
For some semblance of proof that not all people agree with her, the comments section offers an example of people who responded viscerally to the article. These people may have been white, and they may have been rich, but it shows well how out of the blue this article was. No one expected something as… passionate as this article to surface, especially not 2 weeks after the conversation had been essentially put to bed. People of all races found it, frankly, inappropriate. An article written by a Latino student in reply to the article found it personally offensive to him and their shared heritage. That article can be found here: http://williamsalternative.com/2015/03/a-letter-to-the-williams-college-community-david-tavarez/
Another example, this one written slightly more persuasively but written by a white male, can be found here: http://williamsalternative.com/2015/03/re-white-fragility-a-call-for-empathy-harrison-gatlin/
I don’t know Valeria, nor do I know her life, and I do not expect her to feel any kind of empathy towards me as per her words. However, the article was not received well by members of any community on Williams, and so, in the interest of accurately reflecting the opinions of people at Williams, I feel obliged to post those two opposition articles here.
Again, I do not claim to know your experience, and I do not claim to know how you felt or how all minorities at Williams feel. All I can surmise is from my own personal experience with people of color, and, in terms of this article, every person with whom I spoke agreed: this does not reflect their story. If your story is reflected well in the article, then that is certainly a viable opinion and experience to have, but in my personal opinion and experience based on interactions with many people of color it is not the best way to gain an, “understanding of how current students of color are thinking”.