Discussing the commodification of pride is not a novelty at Smith. As students, we are all well acquainted with the story: rainbow capitalism, Target pride merchandising and silly graphic t-shirts. The discourse surrounding corporate America’s true motives behind their bids for diversity and inclusion is already crowded. I am not here to contribute to said conversation but to attest to a reality that few can deny; I have never seen as much pride merchandise as I did in just my first three months at Smith.
From pride flags to cringe-worthy (but adorable) t-shirts, all forms of rainbow-themed commodities can be found in even the most remote corners of Northampton: cafés, gift shops, offices, cannabis dispensaries and independent bookstores. It speaks to a non-verbal language we are all fluent in. I could make a list of the most unorthodox and astonishing places where I have found these staples, but none have baffled me as much as seeing pride stickers plastered on the laptops of students in my Introduction to Microeconomics class. Despite appearances, these laptop stickers don’t seem to portray an entirely accurate picture of the politics of their owners.
Back in September, I had enrolled in the class against all warnings I had received from upperclassmen. Most of the commentary encompassing the class’s rhetoric was about how disagreeable and incendiary it was, and how it incited offended students to constantly question the professors.. One semester later and the raving reviews are in: the class itself wasn’t that transgressive (economics is an infamously not-so-progressive field) and Smith students do not know what they stand for.
The archetype of the Smithie is one we are all familiar with; it is not crazy to assume that most students would self-identify as liberal, or at least seem to hold left-wing-adjacent views. Smithies see themselves as intellectually diligent and politically aware. The college itself has co-opted this idea as a sort of branding strategy, with the school website boasting slogans such as ‘an education as distinctive as you are’ and ‘a tradition of cultivating leaders.’ Smith College is here to help you ‘embrace your identity.’ The Smithie prides themself on what they are and what they represent, so much that every attempt at nonconformity turns into mere virtue signaling.
Politics are all form and no matter, and it is hard to overlook how my economics class started out with several hands being raised in class to argue progressive ideals they had previously not only adopted, but flaunted, only to end up with a grand majority of these ideals abandoned by an inability to be confronted with a different rhetoric. The act of sitting in a class on economic liberalism is not morally, intellectually, ideologically or in any way, shape or form wrong. The act of agreeing with a professor’s opinions, be it on economics or dating stratagems, is not a sin. What is worrying is the cognitive dissonance present in not only this class, but in most spaces at Smith.
Smith students holding fiscally conservative views wouldn’t be confusing to me if they didn’t have pride stickers on their laptops and weren’t posting progressive infographics on their Instagram stories. Smith College bulletin boards and websites filled with diversity slogans wouldn’t be confusing to me if they paid their workers a fair wage and had a decent health insurance package. Pride flags hanging at local cafés wouldn’t be confusing to me if their bathrooms weren’t locked because they don’t want the homeless using them.
And, again, this isn’t a value judgment. The surveying, cultivating and commodification of our identities has led to a sort of interpassivity, in which we let what we look like and what we consume perform our anti-capitalism for us. This is not commentary on rainbow capitalism, political virtue signaling or union-busting; it is a demand for coherency and consistency. There will come a point in your life in which you will need to choose between your progressive politics and striving to work for Goldman Sachs.
