The Strawberry Statement by James S. Kunen

It won the Cannes Jury Prize in 1970.įull disclosure side note: I personally think Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude is the greatest film ever made. The book cover espoused that a ‘new kind of film from MGM’ directed by Stuart Hagmann was on its way. In fact, I have no idea why Kunen hasn’t been on national news broadcasts espousing his absolute disgust (and personal experience) regarding the increase in suppression and violence since writing The Strawberry Statement.Īfter reading the novel, I found the film and watched that as well. So have the same issues that haven’t gone away. I was shocked at the relevance to today’s warriors of peace… Not that it was particularly edgy or bold at the time – because it was – but that the same illegal, violent tactics of suppression and dominance have only increased since then. Not to give the book away, but administration didn’t care, and they didn’t do anything about it.Īnd this was in a time when tuitions were low, enrollment was way less than it is today, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young could dominate a soundtrack of disruption. Kunen’s era wanted peace, wanted an end to the Vietnam war, and simply wanted their colleges to take them seriously rather than creating kangaroo courts of ballot initiatives given a gravity as lucrative as whether the students prefer strawberries in the dining halls or not… or whatever. Today’s federal government also keeps kids in cages and is in cahoots with a variety of dictatorships, our executive branch calling Nazis ‘very fine people.’ Here, we see young people engaged in a war unlike the war of today’s federal totalitarian force. However, the federal government wasn’t sending storm troopers to arrest protesting civilians and throw them into unmarked vans to take them to who knows where.

Kunen’s book comes from another era where the stakes seemed to be high. Police violence responding to people taking to the streets – peacefully – to protest the police violence that came before it. I read it through our current crisis – COVID and a variety of flashpoint uprisings that have reemerged throughout our country as once again we have to remind law enforcement that Black Lives, do in fact, Matter. The timeliness of picking this piece up when I did is undeniable. So… Kunen is no Vonnegut… But he did create a book with a vibrancy and energy that is unlike a lot of what I have read before. With a meager investment of a quarter, The Strawberry Statement sat on my TBR pile for a while, but its length and captivating opening pages made me pick it up recently. There was something about a slim volume with a rare Vonnegut quote on the cover (and then, also, the comparison to Vonnegut by one of the other quotes) and the author’s full Social Security Number on the back that seemed to catch my eye. The Strawberry Statement was one of those surprise purchases from a library book sale.

The Strawberry Statement by James S. Kunen