[NOTE: This post is the third in a series of four retrospective posts to this blog, all of which are relevant to its theme and were instrumental in prompting the author to see to its inception. This post originally took the form of a Facebook note.]
Tonight, those who attended the ASUC Community Forum learned precisely why the system fails: because the University, and by extension its student government, is hogtied by reels upon reels of administrative red (duct) tape and spools upon spools of the proverbial barbed wire that is political correctness.
At the beginning of the meeting, members of the discussion were instructed to "assume positive intent," "step up and step back," and "respect symbols," while making "'I' Statements" and acknowledging a rule they set down as "one mic, one diva." Agreement with statements was to be expressed in the form of snapped fingers. (Unfortunately, I’m referring to the hand gesture, not to the breaking of finger bones.) The whole thing, then, felt like an amalgam of Pre-K-style circle time, sex offender parole meetings, and UNICEF commercials in the trite, saccharine rules; the familiar "stop undressing me with your eyes"-style discomfort; and the highlighted ethnocentricity, respectively.
Were the rules followed, nothing would have been fixed. Notoriously inadequate ASUC Senate president Roxanne Winston would have helplessly flailed about in an attempt to keep things civil despite the overwhelming animosity, and the management would have sat idly by as Tikvah: Students for Israel was made out to look like the National Association of Traffic-Obstructing Puppy-Abusers, only to feverishly deny opportunity for rebuttal on the chance things would spin wildly out of control. As it was, the rules, for the most part, were treated like any other polite suggestions (i.e. disregarded), and things went roughly like that, anyway.
As I stepped out of the hot air circulating in that stuffy Senate room into the crisp, cool night to the sound of a 3-person brass band playing an endearingly (?) off-key attempt at "Tearin' Up My Heart" (itself a classic of modern music), I realized again that the problem with the situation is that the key players here are college students, and that these, like most any others, are angsty and self-absorbed, with the added Berkeley feature of being terribly satisfied with themselves. These are overseen by Jonathan Poullard and spend their time carousing with the fucking psychos that refuse to stop hanging around this campus just because it isn’t 1969 anymore (NOTE: Worker’s Vanguard sighting at 6:18 PM). Speaking with my prejudices admittedly intact, I still assert that this seems to have rubbed off on the "I wear a keffiyeh as a political statement" crowd more than on anyone else attending tonight's meeting.
I could, of course, point to specific instances of where things went wrong in the meeting; that much should be painfully evident by now, as some people tell me I’m insightful, and regardless, I run my mouth off when- and wherever I feel it potentially salubrious. There were a number of examples of violations of these rules, with at least two that I counted (three, if you count El Presidente's cell phone going off) occurring at the hands of the very people who’d proposed the rule violated. In the end, though, specifics don’t matter; as anticipated, tonight only confirmed that all the assumptions everyone had already laid down were true. This is to say, the University’s administration really is comparable to the mumbling octogenarian in the scooter plastered in "FREE MUMIA" bumper stickers; the student Senate really is akin to the potentially cancerous mole growing ever closer to independent sentience on the back of his neck; and the students on both sides of the Israel/Palestine debate are firmly set in their opinions, with supporters of the former side in Berkeley about as welcome as those Palestinians are in Jordan, Syria, or Afghanistan (i.e., unfortunately, not).
I suppose, then, that the major news flash of the evening would be, "UC BERKELEY BUREAUCRACY FAILS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS," announced to a collective lack of gasps and a typically uninspired headlining article in tomorrow morning's Daily Cal.
Tonight, those who attended the ASUC Community Forum learned precisely why the system fails: because the University, and by extension its student government, is hogtied by reels upon reels of administrative red (duct) tape and spools upon spools of the proverbial barbed wire that is political correctness.
At the beginning of the meeting, members of the discussion were instructed to "assume positive intent," "step up and step back," and "respect symbols," while making "'I' Statements" and acknowledging a rule they set down as "one mic, one diva." Agreement with statements was to be expressed in the form of snapped fingers. (Unfortunately, I’m referring to the hand gesture, not to the breaking of finger bones.) The whole thing, then, felt like an amalgam of Pre-K-style circle time, sex offender parole meetings, and UNICEF commercials in the trite, saccharine rules; the familiar "stop undressing me with your eyes"-style discomfort; and the highlighted ethnocentricity, respectively.
Were the rules followed, nothing would have been fixed. Notoriously inadequate ASUC Senate president Roxanne Winston would have helplessly flailed about in an attempt to keep things civil despite the overwhelming animosity, and the management would have sat idly by as Tikvah: Students for Israel was made out to look like the National Association of Traffic-Obstructing Puppy-Abusers, only to feverishly deny opportunity for rebuttal on the chance things would spin wildly out of control. As it was, the rules, for the most part, were treated like any other polite suggestions (i.e. disregarded), and things went roughly like that, anyway.
As I stepped out of the hot air circulating in that stuffy Senate room into the crisp, cool night to the sound of a 3-person brass band playing an endearingly (?) off-key attempt at "Tearin' Up My Heart" (itself a classic of modern music), I realized again that the problem with the situation is that the key players here are college students, and that these, like most any others, are angsty and self-absorbed, with the added Berkeley feature of being terribly satisfied with themselves. These are overseen by Jonathan Poullard and spend their time carousing with the fucking psychos that refuse to stop hanging around this campus just because it isn’t 1969 anymore (NOTE: Worker’s Vanguard sighting at 6:18 PM). Speaking with my prejudices admittedly intact, I still assert that this seems to have rubbed off on the "I wear a keffiyeh as a political statement" crowd more than on anyone else attending tonight's meeting.I could, of course, point to specific instances of where things went wrong in the meeting; that much should be painfully evident by now, as some people tell me I’m insightful, and regardless, I run my mouth off when- and wherever I feel it potentially salubrious. There were a number of examples of violations of these rules, with at least two that I counted (three, if you count El Presidente's cell phone going off) occurring at the hands of the very people who’d proposed the rule violated. In the end, though, specifics don’t matter; as anticipated, tonight only confirmed that all the assumptions everyone had already laid down were true. This is to say, the University’s administration really is comparable to the mumbling octogenarian in the scooter plastered in "FREE MUMIA" bumper stickers; the student Senate really is akin to the potentially cancerous mole growing ever closer to independent sentience on the back of his neck; and the students on both sides of the Israel/Palestine debate are firmly set in their opinions, with supporters of the former side in Berkeley about as welcome as those Palestinians are in Jordan, Syria, or Afghanistan (i.e., unfortunately, not).
I suppose, then, that the major news flash of the evening would be, "UC BERKELEY BUREAUCRACY FAILS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS," announced to a collective lack of gasps and a typically uninspired headlining article in tomorrow morning's Daily Cal.
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