A momentary lapse of apathy!

[telophase]

Woo, there is actual political activity occurring on our campus right now! There's a small rally in the grassy lot behind the library and the seminary in support of the Jena 6. There's even a news van out there filming it.

I am impressed, given the general apathy and conservatism on this campus.

Comments

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

There was a group on my campus as well, selling "Justice in Jena" t-shirts. I think that half the proceeds are going to the Black Culture Center rather than the Jena Six, but I bought one anyway because our Black Culture Center had to deal with so much bullshit in the past just to get built.

I was pretty happy to see how many kids were stopping and talking to them.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

There were a few students watching them when I went by, not many, but it was also during class time (I was heading to the sandwich place in the building next door before the 11 o'clock classes got out and made the line 20 minutes long). There are probably more now, since it's in the gap between the 11 and 12 o'clock classes.

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

I remember those days, taking over a building, standing in protests and a lot of my friends went to march in Washington... My school actually had a bus ready for that i think...and recently i heard it has been made fun of because of its stand by SNL..(sad)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed whenever I see this, because I've always ended up at schools that had students a profound lack of interest in anything beyond their noses (well, me too, I admit). During my undergraduate years, there was a small protest designed to raise awareness about the refugees of the first Gulf War (which dates me, I expect :D), but I couldn't take it seriously as it was composed of students going to an expensive private university who rented tents from the university and camped on the lawn for a week, still going to class and reading their expensive textbooks and eating at the cafeteria. I wasn't quite sure how that was supposed to open my eyes to the horrors of war refugees. If they'd done something to raise money and send it to a relief organization, or if any of them had postponed their schooling for a semester and volunteered to travel and help, I'd have been more impressed.

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

For me, coming from Japan, where all the students protest were left behind in the 60s, it was an eye opening experience. I believe, to do any type of protest for anything like abortion, war and racism etc, do raise some sort of awareness in people. It did for me, especially towards racism and women's rights. I remember coming back for the summer all idealized and fired up about issues and being crushed finding absolutely *no one* to talk to...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

For me, it seems to have to do more with the particular issue. I think the Jena Six rally here on campus today is good, because I'm not sure that many people here know about the situation. However, in the example above, I don't think it did much good because the net result of it was a bunch of overprivileged students saying "War is bad" without making any effort to do something directly for the people who were suffering right at that moment, which they could have done.

(Mind you, did *I* do anything? Nope. I count myself as one of the overprivileged students saying "War is bad, mmkay?")

[sho-sunaga.livejournal.com]

Heeey, at least you thought something about it. You know, I don't think I what I did made a direct difference for the people, either. I think I was more caught up with the movement than anything else. It's sooooo long ago I actually don't exactly rember what came out of that "taking over" the building incident. Arg...how pathetic...(T_T)