Big Year Ahead...
I had my first official meeting as Respect Captain Elect today. It was with the Officer who is in charge of gender issues and sexual harrassment/assault at West Point. I've always considered myself to be fairly open minded and try to consider things from different points of view. In fact, if you read my blog regularly, you'd have read that someone once said that doing so was one of my hallmarks.
Taking on the Respect Program at West Point wasn't something I had always planned, in fact, it kind of "happened"...and I'm excited, but I'm also a little scared and nervous. It is, if I want to do it well, a huge undertaking. If I do my job well, I can leave this place better than I'd left it. If I do my job poorly, the sky wont fall in, but maybe, next year, the year after, or sometime in the future, someone will have to deal with some sort of issue relating to race, gender, religion, orientation or other defining characteristic of personhood...and it will have been my fault because I didn't do well enough.
So, what am I getting at? Well, I was talking to the Officer and she said things that I had never thought of. In one hour, I can count four times where I was visibly taken aback by what she said...things relating to women, religion, sexual harrasment, homophobia...officers and others who had said or done things, different reports she's read, her own personal experiences, that made me gasp audibly (OK, that might be an exaturation, but still...)
One way she looks at being a cadet, that I had previously heard a Jew articulate, was that every person is born with inherent dignity and worth. The day you get to West Point, every male (and to some degree, by extention, every straight white male) retains that dignity, but every female has to slowly buy hers back. We talked about that for a while, and I can see her point.
There are going to be changes next year...some bigger some smaller, but I'm glad I'll be able to have a chance to help...to make a difference in some small part in what goes on here. Luckily, my job is one of the few where, if I do it really well, I will make a lasting difference. Even the First Captain, no matter how good he or she does, when gone, is simply gone. There may be a legacy...but no lasting change. I will have the opportunity to make this place safer, stronger and more functional...if I do my job well.
Taking on the Respect Program at West Point wasn't something I had always planned, in fact, it kind of "happened"...and I'm excited, but I'm also a little scared and nervous. It is, if I want to do it well, a huge undertaking. If I do my job well, I can leave this place better than I'd left it. If I do my job poorly, the sky wont fall in, but maybe, next year, the year after, or sometime in the future, someone will have to deal with some sort of issue relating to race, gender, religion, orientation or other defining characteristic of personhood...and it will have been my fault because I didn't do well enough.
So, what am I getting at? Well, I was talking to the Officer and she said things that I had never thought of. In one hour, I can count four times where I was visibly taken aback by what she said...things relating to women, religion, sexual harrasment, homophobia...officers and others who had said or done things, different reports she's read, her own personal experiences, that made me gasp audibly (OK, that might be an exaturation, but still...)
One way she looks at being a cadet, that I had previously heard a Jew articulate, was that every person is born with inherent dignity and worth. The day you get to West Point, every male (and to some degree, by extention, every straight white male) retains that dignity, but every female has to slowly buy hers back. We talked about that for a while, and I can see her point.
There are going to be changes next year...some bigger some smaller, but I'm glad I'll be able to have a chance to help...to make a difference in some small part in what goes on here. Luckily, my job is one of the few where, if I do it really well, I will make a lasting difference. Even the First Captain, no matter how good he or she does, when gone, is simply gone. There may be a legacy...but no lasting change. I will have the opportunity to make this place safer, stronger and more functional...if I do my job well.
posted by Adam at 1:30 PM
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