On Art, Activism, and Rainbow Mohawks

by Holly Fetter, ’13 + Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, ’06

I had always imagined Stanford to be a particularly radical place. Back in the days when the closest I came to activism was wearing an Obama pin through the halls of my conservative high school, the escapades of my cousin Jonathan inspired the dream of an oasis called Palo Alto. Stories of his collegiate adventures were passed through the familial grapevine, reaching me in such a dramatized state that I couldn’t help but be enraptured by his coolness. He studied studio art, lived in a magical house called Theta Chi, skipped school to attend anti-war protests in San Francisco with his professors, left school for a few quarters to translate obscure texts in Florence, won a prize for illustrating Beowulf, and, perhaps most impressively, sported a rainbow mohawk as a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity.

Now he’s a bonafide artist residing in Brooklyn, NY, where the disheveled hipsters and rooftop parties let him know he’s far from his humble Montana roots. Jonathan has taken to writing and illustrating historical graphic novels. His latest book, called Trinity, tells the story of the atomic bomb. Meant to please high school students, physics geeks, history buffs, and general aesthetes alike, it’s a wonderful volume on the creation of destruction. Jonathan probes the mystery of the U.S.’ atomic power, only to leave any simple answers totally unattainable. The book has garnered incredible press, from a starred Kirkus review to articles in the Huffington Post, Boing Boing, Brain Pickings, Science News, the Boston Globe, and others.

Aside from being an impressive artist, he’s also an impressive activist. I thought I’d ask him a few questions about his experiences with art and activism in preparation for his upcoming reading in San Francisco.

The Port Econ Statement

By Peter “Shotgun” McDonald, ‘11

This is really long, but you’re going to read it anyway. If you think it’s rambling and pretentiousness, congratulations. I kind of agree with you. There’s no need to leave a comment indicating as such.

We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherited, attending a university that helped create it, and capitalism is some bullshit.

When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world: the proprietors of a technological revolution, prevailers of the Cold War, an initiator of a mass cultural/entertainment force that we thought would distribute American influence throughout the world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people, of both the corporeal and corporate variety, — these American values we found good, principles by which we could live as people. Many of us began maturing in complacency.

This month will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Port Huron Statement. Anyone who says that college students are incapable of understanding the complexities of the modern world has not read this statement. Whatever we understand to be the 1960s would not have happened without it. Two days after May Day, a panel of activists brought together for the sixth lecture in the Occupy Art series argued that radical change was not only possible but necessary, and there was no need, indeed no time, to wait to act toward it. This week, hundreds of students will take exams on economic models created in an era when phrenology and phlogiston were still accepted parts of science.

A Few Thoughts on Activism and Stanford Culture

A version of this post originally appeared on the Occupy Art blog.

by Lizzie Quinlan, ’13

Over the past few months I have found myself wondering why it is so hard to mobilize Stanford students to direct action. There is a general perception that activism is a lost art on this campus, and it’s hard to say why this is the case. You would think that with all of the injustices in our world becoming ever more visible as technology makes them easier to broadcast, we would barely have time to breathe for all the marches, boycotts, and rallies we would be organizing. After all, we’re energetic college students, aren’t we? But the reality is that problem after problem gets ignored, or at best halfheartedly discussed by a few people before being swept aside as just another project we don’t have time for in between essays and problem sets.

(* I should preface this blog post with an acknowledgement of all the fantastic service that Stanford students do. I am speaking specifically about activism, which I see as a public critical engagement with issues of social justice and the systems of oppression that create these problems. *)

Given my puzzlement over the current state of affairs, I’ve tried to brainstorm a few possible reasons why so few of us consider ourselves activists, and why public, collective, rage is such an infrequent visitor to this campus. Here’s what I came up with:

(1) Stanford students believe in the system.

The L.A. Riots and the Myth of Multiculturalism

by Holly Fetter, ’13

At tonight’s Occupy Art lecture, Jeff Chang asked, “How did the L.A. Riots change Whiteness?”

My answer? It didn’t.

Twenty years ago today, cleanup efforts began throughout the ravaged cityscape of Los Angeles. For four days, masses of outraged people – primarily people of color – reacted to the unjust acquittal of the four LAPD police officers that beat Rodney King.

I was only two years old when the Riots broke out, a small girl with no memory of this tragedy. All I have is the complicated knowledge that it was the military and police officers that protected my White neighborhood from encountering the flames and violence that were engulfing other parts of the city. The L.A. Riots are a site at which I can begin to excavate my own history of privilege, begin to understand the ways that institutional privilege saved me from being one of the 53 people killed or the thousands injured. By re-visiting the living archive of this uprising, I can understand the world of racism that I inherited, a world hasn’t changed much in 20 years.

When reading about the Riots, one encounters tales of inter-ethnic struggle, of a city destroyed by its own low-income residents of color. But the assigned texts for this week’s Occupy Art lecture allowed me to reflect on the role of White folks during and after the Riots.