Rallying for rallies

Radical students on campus, so the narrative seems to go, form a somewhat sizable minority which, through its shrill and persistent activity, captures the headlines of campus news—to the irritation and dismay of the majority of students. We’re all familiar with the “how many Columbia students does it take to screw on a light bulb” joke. And our discourse regarding leftist activism is not exclusive to language. Protests and rallies are subject to similar marginalization. Reading some of Columbia blogs and newsletter editorials might lead many to believe that the majority of students at Columbia view protests on campus as tiresome and comical, as “spoiled Ivy League brats” who just want to make a fuss.
This dismissal of the activist community at Columbia is unfortunate, because it obscures the universal nature of the tactics they use. Granted, most rallies and demonstrations don’t happen at elite private universities, but dismissing activism at Columbia implies that there should be absolutely no demonstrations at universities like ours. Rallies and protests occur everywhere in the world where there is enough freedom of assembly to do so and even where there isn’t, for good reasons. They are legitimate means to posit perspectives that are often excluded from the upper echelons of authority, and articulate a different notion of power. At the risk of appearing ridiculous, it expresses the people of the people, not the individuals in power.
The incessant mocking and deriding of rallies and marches at Columbia always get a few laughs, but what the laughter implies really isn’t funny. It says that caring about your neighbors, whether they are in Harlem, Mexico, and even Iraq, can’t be taken seriously. It chooses cynicism over the belief that we can create something better. Activists at Columbia know they are setting themselves up to be treated like a fringe group, but they act anyway. That can’t simply be attributed to a self-righteous attitude. Moreover, a lot of Columbia students attend rallies that are not on Columbia’s campus. For the past month or so, a small group of students has gone to 105th and Amsterdam to join former employees in picketing Kim’s Vegetables, a fruit market whose owner paid its workers $2 an hour and justified denying them their lunch breaks because they were “too fat,” according to Justice Will Be Served! It says something about those protesters when they will picket alongside people they don’t know. It says that they care about those who are being treated unjustly. At the same time, we can learn something about individuals who hear stories like this and do not care. The consequences of such apathy are difficult to overstate, but they are easy to ignore since those who don’t care—well—don’t care.
Without protest, our notion of justice would be completely deferential to the very powerful. Our justice system should not revolve around lawyers, judges, and chief executives. It should be centered among those it directly affects. By shifting power away from the majority of people, it takes away our responsibility to care about anything or anyone outside our immediate sphere of influence. Many wonder why the country is in such bad shape. Maybe it’s because few are willing to stand up and do anything about it unless taking action comes with lucrative prospects. Without a strong protest culture, which our country does lack, the people fear their government, when it should be the other way around.
Activism at Columbia is a result of people responding to issues that affect them, both directly and indirectly. Some activists would directly benefit from the passage of the DREAM Act, which would grant financial aid to undocumented immigrants. Some students live off-campus in Harlem, especially during summers, (one of the hunger-strikers, Bryan Mercer, did over the school year) and don’t want to see their neighbors pushed out. I actually believe that most Columbia students do care about these issues. The rejection of NROTC last semester is evidence of that. From campus conversations, the most popularly cited reason for voting against bringing NROTC on campus seemed to be its “Don’t Ask, don’t tell” policy. Unfortunately, some newsletters and blog commentators stand to gain pretensions by mocking and publicly dismissing demonstrators, and that cynicism is tragically contagious. Those who mock protests aren’t anti-social. They’re just anti-justice.

The author is a Columbia College sophmore majoring in history and anthropology. He is a member of SCEG and Lucha.