Word: obsession
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...with the knowledge that before it was all over no one would know where to find anything anymore. Conversation became suddenly careful; the pinups were peeled off the wall. The issue of sexual harassment -- what it is, why it happens, who's to blame -- was a fascinating topic to obsess upon as a nation, wonder about in private, argue about in public. It was also a long, bruising week of bumping into issues that many of us didn't know were there...
This I don't find to be "preaching to the converted," and I don't feel that AWARE encourages anyone to "obsess about race." What does arise is an opportunity for expression of various and differing viewpoints. I'm sorry to disappoint Larew, but with diversity as Harvard's motto, it's unlikely that most people's thinking is alike. Hence, most people might want to think for themselves before they say that AWARE Week is not going to help them much...
...AWARE Week sets up a much more stringent standard--an impossibly stringent standard, in fact. It asks us to identify and expunge every strand and fiber of insensitivity (as previously defined) from our consciousness. This standard encourages us to obsess about race, which, paradoxically, tends to let considerations of race intrude where they have no business and where they would not have arisen otherwise...
Herlihy's words, his disregard for the demographics which so obsess record promoters, echo a sentiment that performers frequently express. "We haven't really worried about how [our music] is going to be received," he says proudly. "We just try to get ourselves excited about...