The title is a line from a song I wrote years ago as I was working through what was arguably the most important decision in my life.  At that time, it involved whether to remain in contact with a family member suffering extreme addiction to alcohol, severe enough to the point where they were either going to be arrested or embalmed. Sadly, the addiction resulted in the latter, prematurely and a great loss to others in the family.

Today, the choice is not as severe but still important and I have the same feeling of dread that even making no decision is a bad decision. I have been attending a class on incarceral technologies at Haverford College during my sabbatic leave. The professor is engaging, and a number of the students are CS majors I have known for a few years. The readings have been appropriately uncomfortable and there have been class trips and visitors that have made it clear that despite all our progress we have so much to do in terms of fairness in this society.

Today’s class meeting is scheduled for Bryn Mawr College as a final pizza party and perhaps concluding thoughts from everybody in the class. It has been scheduled by the professor to coincide with the encampment at Bryn Mawr College to encourage support for the people of Palestine.  This class meeting also is scheduled after a night of arrests around the country at Columbia University, UCLA, Washington University, Emory University, and the University of Texas at Austin (and I suspect there are more than I’m not aware of).

I am genuinely not concerned about being arrested simply because I think the protest at Bryn Mawr has been peaceful. The one at Haverford College was certainly peaceful and is already concluded.

My concern involves the perception of my presence at the encampment among members of the Bi-College community that includes friends from all sides of the ongoing crisis found presently in Gaza. As a professor, I realize that how I proceed will be perceived by members of the community in different ways. Simultaneously, I’m attending a course which has covered the realities in society that have needed to be changed by the uncomfortable yet important leadership demonstrated by people who challenge the status quo. As many know, legal does not always equal right or moral.

I am also a parent, and my actions have consequences for not just the community but a family where I feel overwhelmingly responsible. But either way, I’m either seen as taking a side or (perhaps) lacking the courage to follow through on the lessons I have learned.

However, in this instance, that’s the issue, I don’t feel I know enough about the situation to take any particular side. Furthermore, I don’t have time to educate myself with a class meeting in less than two hours.

So, what to do?

My first inclination was to compose an email message to the professor (and colleague) and explain this conundrum and that until I’m sure I will likely miss the class and avoid the encampment. But what message would that send?

Fortunately, I was able to have a conversation with that professor, who listened actively and demonstrated they were able to see the position I was in and supportive of however I wished to proceed, also providing some options.

Therefore, I plan to visit the class which is scheduled to be held at the encampment in Bryn Mawr College today, but not just for the pizza, but also to hear what students have Bryn Mawr College.  My son Peter works at the college, so maybe I can sneak off and say hi to him as well.

If there are consequences to any relationships I have with members of the community or my family, I will address them as they arise — ideally starting some conversations proactively.

But the reason I started taking this class was to learn, and learning can often be uncomfortable. Not all pain is gain, so I plan to revisit this post after the class meeting so I don’t forget.

Just like I am happy that I was able to compose the song about the loss of a close family member due to addiction, but also to capture the codependency I experienced. It is a bittersweet memory, and I have mixed emotions today.

So, maybe I’ll learn something today.

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It is almost 4:00 p.m. ET, class ended well, the professor did a fine job of pulling our thoughts we had shared during the first class meeting to see if anything had changed during the semester. Overall, I think I learned the most about how to look at the relationship between technology and people, especially surveillance, using a different framework.

However, my reservations about attending the lecture held at Bryn Mawr College adjacent to the encampment protesting the treatment of Palestinians were warranted. As soon as I walked around the encampment, I was able to identify other students from the class. However, I was immediately approached by members of campus security who recognized me and we had a nice conversation as to why I was on Bryn Mawr College campus that day. I asked directly what they were curious about, and they cited signs that had the phrase FTRTTS is considered threatening and that’s inappropriate.

Next, a student journalist  approached me to see if I had anything to say and did ask permission to be quoted and cited. My only response was simply, “I am here to learn.” I explained that I was here to attend a class that I had been attending all semester and that I was also looking forward to pizza lunch. Actually, that turned out to be a lie as I realized I was a bit anxious and not able to really eat anything.

Eventually, the students sat down in some shade which was nice considering the sun was pretty bright. The professor arrived with ice cream cake and students had pizza. We went around and introduced ourselves as we do each week. The conversation was led by one of the students and discussed how the technology industry has turned the idea of free access into a profit generator. This was not a surprise to me, and it was interesting hearing the discussion.

I was most impressed by how the professor was able to take most of what students shared and connected to either the readings or other concepts covered in the course, but not giving it to them. Instead, they challenged the students to remember how this connects to the course.

Once the class began I started to feel comfortable. I shared my anxiety with the class and they were quite supportive. However, at one point during the class the other students around the encampment but not in the class started chanting certain slogans, including “FTRTTS,” followed by mild applause. At that point all I could do was put my head down, shake my head and hope that it would be over soon.

In retrospect, this may have been a good experience for me to provide a new perspective. As we detailed in the course, I generally do not a fit to any of the demographics that are often targeted by the prison industrial complex. I am most likely in the majority. However, as the students chanted I was clearly in the minority without any way to intervene effectively even though I was a respected professor in the Bi-College Consortium. What was most interesting is I do not believe any of the students did anything to make me uncomfortable intentionally, this was just the result of the immediate situation in space and time. There must be so many times where I make others from different demographics and situations uncomfortable unintentionally. That does not take away from the discomfort that is real.

Not all pain is gain, but I hope that I am able to remember and apply much of the discussion that we had this past semester.