“The League of Smooth Justice” (almost a love story) By Mayuran Tiruchelvam This past Spring, Wesleyan was in the dumps. Hate mails were posted on the door of Chinese House, the SJB was protecting bigots under the pretense of “free speech,” and a student was sexually assaulted while walking on campus. In these grim circumstances, my proactive companion, Cara, suggested that we must become a community dedicated to tend to matters before they became problems – to fight injustice before it became violent – emotionally, psychologically, or physically. Given the “tolerance = indifference” attitude of many students on this campus, this is no small feat to achieve. Such a movement, which in my idealistic mind included teams of radical feminists patrolling the campus at night; students with the courage to call people on their prejudices ~and~ help them to work through those prejudices, rather than suppress them; and students willing to hold their community members accountable, even before the racist SJB, for violating the collective standards of our community. I thought our campus needed not just heroes but SUPER-heroes. Being an emasculated, physically incapable lad, I’ve had an unhealthy obsession with superheroes. Comic books were my lifeblood for much of adolescence. For a F.O.B., Sri Lankan American geek in the suburbs there were few things in reality that were particularly inspiring. Say what you will about escapism, but the only place I found people fighting for justice and equality was in fantasy. (I think now about how that has affected my perceptions of a just society – after all there were no prominent Black, Latino, or Asian American superheroes at the time, women were often exploitatively underdressed, and no matter how noble Batman or Superman or Daredevil were, it always came down to violence to save the day). So where were all the progressives in Superhero Land? Eventually they met at Wesleyan. I encountered Bobby, the Clark Kent to my Bruce Wayne, somewhere in the Halls of Justice (in this case, Butterfield C) during orientation week a few years back. Within a few days we’d launched a ludicrous campaign for WSA election, which would lead to hours well spent being denied by our better knowing upper-class peers. I thought we were the dynamic duo – capable of taking on anything. Bobby once said that being a radical person of color is like being one of the X-Men – fighting to save a world that hates and fears you. That’s an apt description, excluding the powers and tremendous sex appeal of those spandex clad outcasts. I think if I possess any mutant power, it’s the ability to screw up other people’s lives as badly as my own. In the course of the fight against oppression, I suppose I failed to see how deeply I could drag someone down – or how much I ignored the importance of being a friend rather than just a partner-in-crime to young Bobby. Who would’ve thought that making such connections was so bloody difficult? There is a phenomenal loneliness about life out here on the left. You’d think the shocking sense of alienation that made us realize all was not right in the world would lead to a welcoming collective space where we all feel at home. Maybe that exists for the privileged folks in the movement – but I’m often just as alienated in progressive spaces as I would be at a National Rifle Association convention. Sometimes we progressives are too caught up in rhetoric and the immediate goals of the movement rather than the process of growing as a community. I think of the number of times I have worked with other students of color, with other queer students, and never felt the honesty or encouragement that is supposed to come from those peoples with whom my lot lies. That is to say – where’s the bloody love? Which brings me to thinking of romance on the left – that’s a terrifying space. I’d venture to say that many of my brothers and sisters in the movement are the most sexually frustrated people I know. (Perhaps radicals have such bad sex lives because they have trouble determining who’s on top.) Bobby now has a companion – a Lois Lane to his Superman. He seems so much more peaceful, as if the entire struggle means something on a human level. I suppose we still fight the powers that be – the dynamic duo back in action – but I look at how much he’s grown as a person and realize that sometimes we were just fighting without a focus. I’ve spent too much of my time trying to be the superhero – jumping from one battle to the next. I think often about the conclusion of the movie “Shane” – Alan Ladd riding over the hill into the sunset, stooped over in the saddle, having fought the good fight, but ultimately unable to exist in the society he fights for. I don’t think I want to live with that kind of gunslinger mentality any longer. Slowly, I’m coming to realize that the way we build community and solidarity on the left is through nurturing relationships – that is, by creating something that is beautiful rather than only focusing on dismantling all that is ugly. I’m afraid of seriously buggering up any attempts at the former. It was always much easier to retreat to the fortress of solitude – but the struggle is so meaningless with nothing and no one to come back to. Though I think we all wear masks of a sort in public, I spent far too much time neglecting the little boy beneath mine. At the same time, I failed to see the others around me with arms outstretched. They aren’t creating the justice league of Wesleyan, but rather a movement where alienation and isolation have no place. I recognize that I would be insane if not for those individuals in my life, each in their own way struggling for justice, but determined not to let each other be alone. By allowing myself to be loved, like Bobby did, I’m finding existence much more peaceful. As I was reflecting on the conclusion of my trendy existential crisis of late adolescence, my housemate thought it fitting to read me from Camus — “Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future — and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people.” As we on the left face this “Crisis of Infinite Justice,” I find old Albert’s words rather astute. The challenge now is not to be superhuman, but simply human.

editorial letters “The League of Smooth Justice” (almost a love story) Overcome the dollar and expand compassion, Wes progressives Contextualizing Anti-Western sentiment in the near east  Think, question, act Meat-eaters, begin to rethink your justifications  Meat is murder; damn tasty murder Bombs for Ramadan: bad chalking, good policy Bartlett apologizes for “Dairy is Rape” Crenshaw’s terrorism comments are one-sided

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