Student Activism
I picked up my copy of the Hate Issue over the weekend when I was able to get on campus.
I didn’t read the copy before it went out—not that I’m complaining, I enjoy fresh material. Mortis the Pestilent’s hate column on student protests caught my eye. The column grabbed my attention because I’d just reread this article prior to the “I Hate Student Protests” one.
Yes, we’ve known about this issue since January, the article is from then as well, but seeing friends graduate and parents wander around the campus like Japanese tourists (some of whom probably were Japanese tourists) reminded me of what I’ll be facing next spring when I graduate.
And then it got me angry. Not at the University, because well, fuck them as is.
Every single day when you walk by the EMU amphitheater some dim-witted OSPIRG brainwash with a clipboard tries to assault students with the “environmental cause” or the “I hate Bush cause” or my personal favorite “the student cause.”
These priviledged, ignorant “students” will protest the most hopeless causes to death. Darfur, the Russel Athletic Contract, white privilege, racism, whatever.
But when it comes to something that’s close to home, like the University out-right picking the Athletic Department over students, no one said a word except one lonely article in the ODE and a few angry comments under CJ’s post about it.
Beyond being lost in their own rhetoric maybe, just maybe even the goons in the Insurgent could have mustered up some kind of crazy, hippy rage over this. No one has bothered to protest this. Two professors came out against it in the media, Nathan Tublitz and Bill Harbaraugh. The School of Music supported the decision, to be honest, fuck the school of music.
Is it just me or is this not something to get indignant about? It’s one thing to protest Darfur. Most of the kids protesting that will never go to Darfur, will never meet a real African and in all likelihood all they did was buy a t-shirt that sent 10 dollars to the Red Cross and not Darfur. Sure they might not wear Russell Athletics clothes but who cares, they all wear Nike anyway.
This seems, to me, like something for the general student to protest. It might be something that I would take a flyer for. It’s an event that really proves how much the University caters to Athletics over Academics. Myself, I normally don’t care because it’s not really affecting the educational quality of the Univeristy, non-diverse (in all aspects politically, ethnically, whatever) faculty and bureaucratic bullshit affect the quality of education here.
However, this feels like a slap in the face.
Now, the important question, will I protest?
No.
Mostly this is just indignant anger. Mostly the lack of response of by 98% of the UO community has created in my apathy towards protesting for the betterment of those people. If I were to protest it would be for me. To be honest, it’s a little selfish to protest for yourself, make it a little bigger in my head and I might. For now, no.
