On Tuesday, February 4th, revolutionary thinker and activist Angela Davis visited Ithaca College and participated in a so called fireside chat titled “We Are Because They Were: An Evening With A Living Ancestor.” Tickets for the event sold out within the first few hours, as did tickets for the livestream of the talk. Director of Religious and Spiritual Life on campus, Lauren Kelly Benson, served as a moderator, with President La Jerne Terry Cornish joining the conversation for the last 30 minutes. When registering for the event, attendees were encouraged to submit questions. For the first hour of the event, Benson asked Dr. Davis questions drawn from this pool. Each question seemed to be a conglomeration of general thoughts and concerns expressed by attendees, with a focus on a sense of fear and uncertainty. This was expressed in vague questions by Benson like “what do we do now?” and “how do we keep going?” These questions prompted surface level responses from Dr. Davis, meaning that the most interesting parts of the event were when Dr. Davis went “off-script” and began talking about her passionate feelings on the the genocide in Gaza, or the resistance she has been met with in her long history of activism.
Despite Angela Davis voicing frustration with those around her agreeing with everything she says, Lauren Kelly Benson and La Jerne Terry Cornish did just that. The structure of the fireside talk catered to the two administrators rather than to the large number of students in the audience. Though Benson asked questions under the pretense of benefiting students, it seemed that they and Cornish centered themselves to Dr. Davis’s responses. Similar to the Grinch’s heart, audience members watched Cornish’s ego inflate three sizes at the mere presence of Dr. Davis on campus. Occasionally Angela Davis pushed back on Benson and Cornish’s antics. During the conversation, Cornish stated that “the time for rest is not now.” Dr. Davis disagreed, arguing that you must believe that even if you stop to rest, the work will continue, and that it is individualistic to believe that it won’t. The two asked Dr. Davis for advice, but before she could answer, Benson put a disclaimer that “getting advice don’t mean you have to do it.” Much of the conversation went like this, with Benson and Cornish expertly skirting around any kind of administrative culpability that could have come their way. Dr. Davis voiced her dislike of the question, as she felt that the older you get, the more people ask you for advice, but that she herself is still uncertain in the world and often looks to the younger generations for answers.
After a pause and seemingly much deliberation, Lauren Kelly Benson asked the question “what do academic institutions need to be doing right now?” The question was met immediately with shouts from the crowd of “divest,” referring to the college’s ties to Israel and Cornish’s previous avoidance of the subject, along with a comment on Predominately White Institutions (PWIs). Cornish first responded to the topic of PWIs, going on a short tangent on how everyone knew when they came to IC that it was a PWI, and that what students of color do for the institution is make it richer, more expansive, and they help others learn and grow because they aren’t used to dealing with “other,” Cornish said, while pointing at herself. Having students of color on campus to expose white students to different cultures is absurd, and she seemingly argued that diversity is good because it helps white students. When Cornish was finally done, Dr. Davis said “we also need protests,” not letting the President ignore the call to divest. Despite having previously conversed enthusiastically about the dangers of cancel culture, after Angela Dr. Davis’s comment, President Cornish literally walked halfway off stage until she was called back by Benson and Dr. Davis.
While Angela Davis should be celebrated as an individual, IC and specifically its administration should not be lended any of her credos for hosting her on campus. The talk that occurred highlighted the way the IC administration silences and ignores student voices, especially when those voices are critiquing the school. They went so far as to talk over the Angela Davis, a figure who the FBI could not bring down but who was given such softball questions by Lauren Kelly Benson and masterful redirection from La Jerne Terry Cornish that for the hour and a half that she was on stage, she was barely able to get a word in.