On April 25, College senior Jessica Lam posted this statement of concern:

The first time I saw the small fliers advertising Solarity’s next event, I joked about modifying them with labels so the new version would read, “White Culture is TOXICITY.”

Weeks later, my friend tells me she was in Japan during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. This is what she thinks about when she sees Solarity’s posters. Merriam-Webster defines dystopia as “an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives” — but imaginary for whom?

1. Toxicity, 1945: 66,000 dead and 69,000 injured (Hiroshima); 39,000 dead and 25,000 injured (Nagasaki). Put the active into radioactive.

2. Toxicity, 1962: 150,000 children born with birth defects, thanks to Agent Orange. It’s definitely inviting you to play.

3. Toxicity, 1986: 350,000 people forcibly reset-

tled after the Chernobyl disaster. Come alone or bring a friend.

4. Toxicity, 1991: 3,400 metric tonnes of soot released each day in Kuwaiti oil well fires. The fog and smoke of the wasteland.

5. Toxicity, 2010: 4.9 million barrels of crude oil discharged at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; crude oil becomes 52 times more toxic when combined with the Corexit dispersant. You notice a pulsing, hypnotizing glow.

6. Toxicity, 2014: 300,000 residents affected by the Elk River chemical spill. Escape the wastes, unite with others, relax and enjoy yourself.

Glorifying human-made disasters is TOXICITY. Playing dystopian make-believe with people’s lived realities is TOXICITY.

The following addendum was then released on April 28:

ii wiia-as-commentary can be incredibly powerful in critiquing social institutions, governments and environmental catastrophes. However, dystopia-as-fantasy does not serve the same function; instead, it runs the risk of normalizing violence and relegating people’s lived realities to the realm of fiction.

The initial statement was intended to address Solarity’s use of dystopic and toxic imagery in their advertisements, as well as how attendees’ interpretations of the theme may be reflected in their dress and mannerisms. The statement was not meant to attack Solarity or the organizers, performers and attendees of the event. Rather, I hoped to open up a conversation about the romanticization of dystopian realities. A panel to discuss this and related topics will be held on Friday, May 2 at 12 p.m. in Wilder 112.

Members of the Asian American Alliance and I spoke with Solarity before and after going public. They have taken our concerns seriously from the start, and we are continuing this productive conversation. We ask attendees of Toxicity and the greater Oberlin College community to do the same.

1. The Manhattan Engineer District, The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. June 29, 1946. pp. 44-5.

2. Swiss Red Cross, (2004) The Magazine of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Retrieved from http://www.redcross.int

3. UNDP and UNICEF. (2002, January 22). The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. p. 66.

4. Hobbs, P. V., & Radke, L. F. (1992). Airborne Studies of the Smoke from the Kuwait Oil Fires. Science, 256, 987-991. 5. United States Coast Guard. (2011). On Scene Coordinator Report Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Retrieved from

http://uscg.mil/
6. Rico-Martínez, R., Snell, T. W., & Shearer, T. L. (2013).

Synergistic toxicity of Macondo crude oil and dispersant Corexit 9500A® to the Brachionus plicatilis species complex (Rotifera). Environmental Pollution, 173, 5-10.

7. Gabriel, T. (2014, January 10). Thousands Without Water After Spill in West Virginia. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

Solarity’s response:

We, the members of Solarity, wish to express our sincerest apologies for any distress or offense the theme of our upcoming event has caused. Our failure to promote unity, along with the criticisms that have come from the promotion of our spring event have saddened us greatly, as it is completely antithetical to our intent, and we are making it our top priority to fix this right now.

Our two main goals as Solarity are to provide a platform that showcases the vast amount of student talent on campus and to create an event that can accommodate as much of the student body as possible, bringing people from many different campus communities together. In regard to our second goal, it seems that we have done a poor job, to say the least, and have unintentionally hurt members of this community.

We decided our theme after discussions and consideration from the 25 members of Solarity, people of various backgrounds, identities and experiences. Although we had multiple perspectives when deciding the theme, we admittedly did not do a good job conveying our vision to the student body, and we fully appreciate its potential connotations. Our vision of Toxicity was a wasteland where forgotten and unwanted objects are turned into a beautiful extraterrestrial environment, with slime, fog and bubbles adding color and experience. We chose this theme because we believed it was a straightforward aesthetic to pursue and were excited to decorate the space with objects and materials that we collected from junkyards around Oberlin.

However, it is clear that we did not accurately convey our vision of the theme to the student body. Instead we have offended some by giving them the impression that our theme was dystopian, romanticizing disasters. On second look, we completely understand why our theme could be perceived this way. We apologize for the imagery and descriptions used in our promotional campaigns and to anyone who may have been hurt by our choices.

Though only a first step, we held an emergency meeting to discuss this issue immediately after it came to our attention and have already made initial changes. Unfortunately, this issue was not brought to our attention until yesterday evening — five days before our upcoming event — and we wish that a dialogue and amendments could have started sooner. Nonetheless, we want to address concerns and desperately wish to begin a conversation. We will be working closely with the AAA and any other organizations or groups that are representing the communities that were affected by our event. We recognize that we have taken on a very challenging task in trying to unite our incredibly diverse campus, and every day we are reminded that there is still so much to learn. As a part of this learning process, we will continue conversations that we have started with the MRC as well as the SIC and other groups on campus to attempt to provide a comfortable environment for as many people as possible. We hope that this can also be an opportunity to reflect and create dialogue among the student body. There will be a panel discussion on Friday, May 2 at noon in Wilder 112.

With this in mind, we would like to ask all attendees of our event to dress and act with consideration and respect to the concerns that have been raised.

We have been working incredibly hard to put this event on for the campus and want the whole community to be able to enjoy it. Come out and support the huge amount of Oberlin student talent that will be displayed on Friday.

Respectfully, Solarity