Author: Dean DeChiaro
Since my last letter to the Occidental community, published in this semester’s first issue of The Weekly, campus has been buzzing with activity. I’ve heard more and more students discussing the issues currently affecting our daily lives, many of which have appeared in various editions of this newspaper in the past two months. Between concerns about Residential Education and Housing Services, to the administration’s intensified crackdown on off-campus parties and marijuana usage, to the involvement of students in protests against banks downtown, Occidental’s students are becoming more political.
It is clear that this year, our student body is taking an interest in campus and national politics, and getting closer to a point where we are truly raising our voices in a politically effective manner. That said, we are far from a place where we can truly call ourselves a politically dynamic campus, as some would like to portray us, and its crucial that we do better. To understand this struggle between action and apathy, one needs look no further than the Occupy movement and its foray onto Occidental’s campus.
Since my last letter, the Occupy movement has grown into a worldwide political phenomenon active in most American urban centers and major cities around the world. It was only a matter of time before this movement reached college campuses, and sure enough, a few weeks ago, a sole tent was pitched on the Quad in support of Occupy L.A. According to those “occupying” Occidental College, our student body represents the official student wing of Occupy L.A. Evaluating the movement’s progress since the tent was pitched (I’m currently sitting on the quad, and the tent itself is nowhere to be seen), our school’s response to this calling has been nothing short of pathetic.
For instance, last Friday morning, Oxy was buzzing with the news that a campus-wide walkout would take place at 1:30pm, coinciding with the start of afternoon classes. Going into my midterm a few minutes late, I stopped to checkout the event, and found myself disappointed (but by no means surprised) to see about 50 students moseying about, unsure of what they were doing, looking more like a lost group of first-years than an organized political coalition. According to the online newspaper Eastsider L.A., all the students had gone to class fifteen minutes later. Some walkout.
The one-tent “occupation” of the Quad and the failed walkout are a microcosm of the larger issue at hand- the sheer level of apathy shown by the student body over the course of the past few years. There was once a time when class would not have interfered with the student body’s dedication to a political cause, as in the sixties when this campus could pass for a smaller version of UC Berkeley. Or in the eighties when students staged a sit-in of the AGC Administration Building demanding that Oxy divest from companies doing business with the apartheid-era South African government. The time has now come when the student body must come together and make a choice: either we do this right, or we don’t do it at all. The success of the Occupy movement, or any grassroots political movement for that matter, is contingent on the involvement of cohesive groups willing to go the distance to make the demands of the masses heard. “Occupy Oxy” is far from that.
This choice we must make is far from a simple one. It is possible that 2011 will represent an important moment in our college’s history. Students, members of the administration, the Eagle Rock and Highland Park communities, and the world at large, if they should take a moment to look, will see the choice we make now as the one that defined the identity of our student body for years to come. Either we will emerge as a student body devoted to a political cause, or as one that decided that the stereotypical image of the posh liberal arts school watching the world pass by from the convenient location atop its ivory tower was acceptable enough. The Occupy movement will leave its place in the history books, but will we?
Dean DeChiaro
Editor-in-Chief
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
