Coming back from Thanksgiving break, Lang students returned to campus to find multiple posters, the American flag, LGBTQ flag, trans rights flag, women’s liberation flag, the Black Lives Matter poster and a photo of a kitten, were posted in windows of faculty offices, the cafe, classrooms, stairwells, and hallways. The flags were a response to an array of incidents: the election results, students heading home to face possible opposing political stances with their families, and the incident of swastikas being drawn in Kerrey Hall.
“I was intrigued just because there was no clear indication as to who put them there and why,” said Sarah Lazar, 24. “I felt a sense of hope or some sort of feeling that everyone cared about these specific issues, especially after Thanksgiving.”
The posters were put up by Lang College Coalition, a group of faculty and students. The purpose of the organization is to act as an open source for students and faculty who want to take action about the values of women’s liberation, LGBTQ rights, trans rights and black lives.
“It was a way to welcome everyone back from Thanksgiving by visually saying something about what we could believe in, and it’s not explicitly [about] politics,” said McKenzie Wark, chairman of culture and media studies at Lang and a member on the coalition. “It was a way to say that we stand for all those values as more of a cultural understanding [rather than a political understanding].”
The group tries to keep its members secret because they believe that there are things that are inappropriate and appropriate for faculty to take part in and discuss. Wark, as spokesperson of the coalition, has openly tweeted and acknowledged his affiliation with the group.
“The Lang College Coalition emerged out of that, just a casual name for faculty and students that might have a relation to contemporary politics,” Wark said.
“We’re not changing the world by putting posters up, but it’s the little things that say these are the values we stand for,” Wark said. “ If you give publicity to it [swastika incident] you’re giving people the attention they want in the first place. When that kind of politics and culture is asserting itself, you have to find an alternative way to respond.”
The Lang College Coalition was started at a general faculty meeting where Wark banded with two faculty members who had done similar activism work in the past. The first action of the organization was to print and hang the posters. Wark explained that students who are creating any sort of event or activist work, in terms of the values the flags represent, are welcomed to put the work under the name of Lang College Coalition.
“I was confused as to why there was a poster for DAPL and why there was a photo of a kitten,” said Clare Kemmerer, 18. “But the flags did evoke a lot of conversation about those specific values in the classroom.”
Wark and the Lang College Coalition had specific intent for all the images they chose to print and post around campus, even the American flag, which to some students may seem to not fit with the other flags represented that are centered more around activism.
“The American Flag is posted because these things should be American values. Equality for all is an American value. It’s a way of making the colleges space itself mean a signal that is inclusive. The cute kittens were posted because we all need something to make us feel good,” Wark said.
Photo by Don Eim