Do Your Part in the Strike

In planting themselves at the heart of our University on South Lawn, the hunger strikers serve as a jarring reminder of our urgent need to self-reflect and re-envision ourselves as a community. They also make themselves a slow-moving target. It is, after all, easy to dismiss them, to taunt them, to critique them, to do anything but engage with what brought them to the lawn in the first place.

This Wednesday, in an attempt to foster dialogue about the strikers’ tactics—or so they claim—the College Republicans set up a table of food on Low steps, creating an interesting tension for the self-proclaimed “silent majority”: where do you go if you are opposed to the hunger striking tactics but are not so down with the insensitive gesture of donuts at Low?

As the hunger strike continues, I am more and more convinced that it is a convenient way of disengaging with the real issues and is a guilt-free remedy for justifying inaction and apathy when it comes to working to make this University a more inclusive, honest, and safe place for all of its students.

In a matter of days, over 600 people have joined the Facebook group, “We Do Not Support the Hunger Strikers” and have mobilized around the issues of paralysis of administrative negotiation and critique of the severity and exclusiveness of hunger striking tactics; members have posted questions, planned a silent protest, and created posters.

Where was this energy, this passion, this concern after the noose at Teachers College or the anti-Semitic graffiti and anti-Muslim and anti-African graffiti? Or, if activism is less about being reactionary and more about building and creating, where was the inspiration and creativity when it came to developing the infrastructure and the campus climate? And to do so in such a way that hate incidents are no longer symptomatic of larger, institutional failures or reflective of less dramatic, everyday insults to students of color? It is not a sexy cause, nor does it lend itself easily to slogans or massive Facebook groups. But it is the task student activists have committed themselves to for decades. The tents on the South Lawn did not appear spontaneously on a Wednesday night. More than five people put them there. These tents are the outgrowth of years spent trying to talk to the student body, trying to negotiate with the administration, trying to create timeliness, trying to play all of the civil, bureaucratic rules the “silent majority” is now asking strikers to follow. No movement is beyond reproach or critique. A hunger tactic is ideal for no one, and we should question it. It reflects how broken-down and ineffective student-to-administration communication really is. That the student body can respond with such an ardent lack of introspection and concern for our peers is reprehensible. Dissent does not look like the ugliness and callousness that has gone down in editorial pages, classrooms, and campus spaces these past few days. As a reminder, no one resorts to depriving themselves of food for trivial requests, nor do they do so if they can simply talk things out or negotiate. It is a desperate, last-step move when all else fails.

The demands aren’t new goals of a radical, fringe group in need of attention. They are the same old, basic needs presented 10 years ago and growing dusty on administrative to-do lists. Only now, they are pushed by a whole slew of groups as well as faculty and community members who have had enough, who want answers and concrete action, and who are tired of being pacified by the ideologies of “wait,” “shut up,” and “go to another school if you don’t like it.” Meanwhile, the daily threat of hate incidents, outdated curriculum, strained resources, and a hostile campus climate remain eminent and unbearable pressures.

The claim that the hunger strikers have “highjacked the collective voices of the student body” (as one anonymous poster on Spectator’s Web site claims) is difficult to take seriously. The “silent majority” were nowhere to be found when conversations about the issues of marginalization and University justice were being waged. Dialogue has been happening for years, albeit not from tents and not in front of Fox News cameras. If you deemed those issues unimportant, if you chose to remain silent and inactive, if you didn’t educate yourself about the history of the University or what may be its salient concerns, if you didn’t go to a meeting or two, if you were aggressively apathetic, no one has to “highjack” your voice.

And it’s not too late to be engaged, now that you have finally woken up. Many of the negotiation meetings are open. There have always been means to educate yourself. The tents and the strikers are still there to talk to, share with, argue amongst. They are emphatic about engaging in dialogue. But if you refuse to collaborate, you cannot bemoan your voicelessness. Formulate an alternative vision that will begin to address chronic and unavoidable problems at this University—not just modes of activism, but also the issues activism tries to address: the lack of resources, the lack of support, the lack of safety, and the lack of welcome here at this school. Diversity is more than just a numerical mass of students of color. It also means creating the infrastructure to have those students’ presence matter. The status quo is insufficient.

The truth is, no effort for social justice, self-reflection, or self-critique ever wins majority support. Segregation, exploitation, racism, sexism, homophobia—they are never debunked by a popular over-swelling of support. It takes the few willing to remain engaged, alert, and unfazed by sacrifice to make an institution cutting-edge and free. There is little room for a “silent majority” that resents such jolts and labor and sulks at having to even consider issues that are not directly its own.

Candace Mitchell is a Columbia College junior majoring in English.
Under the Radar runs alternate weeks.
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