Crashed in Brooklyn last night with my bud, Patrick, who's also the designer behind the NEMstudents.
It was a trek and half getting to Columbia this afternoon, but Cleve was there speaking with students. It reminded me of when he spoke at 1FEST, intimately with students. Very real. About their concerns and the direction of this movement. He spoke about the need for students to take charge, to take hold, but for a greater need to develop an understanding of civil disobedience...
I spoke with students after the event. We need to think bigger, we agreed. Nobody is going to lay a blueprint. We know that. I guess we are the real architects of this movement...
Grabbed a bite, and now I'm alone again, hanging at Columbia in front of Hamilton Hall. It's nice, they have free wifi, which keeps me happy. And I have my reader that I've been carrying around for some time now. And so I'm watching these students walk by and I'm reading about the 1985 blockade that took place right spankin here. Students chained themselves to the administration building and protested for over three weeks, demanding the university divest its funds from South Africa and corporations that were funding the Apartheid.
Many social theories developed from this particular student action. Sociologists evolved their understanding of how student movements can successfully mobilize students to protest. Rational choice and collective behavior models were no longer seen as adequate. Instead, there came to be an understanding that, "recruitment and commitment in protest movements were best explained by analyzing group-level political processes such as consciousness-raising, collective empowerment, polarization, and collective decision making. Such processes increase protesters' political solidarity-- their commitment to the cause and their belief in the non-institutional tactics that further their cause" (Hirsch, Columbia University).
So we're thinking bigger, but now we need to reflect this in our actions!
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I was going to head back to Brooklyn to get ready for the fundraiser at Elmo, but honestly, I'd rather bum it.
2 Comments:
Dave, I assume you were there! I did not get to go, but I sent my roommate to represent both of us.
Howdy,
I found your blog via Facebook. We seem to have a couple of friends in common.
There's a new LGBT politically-focused group budding at my university, the University of North Texas (just north of Dallas). They've begun in the wake of a bylaw that was voted down by the student senate that would have allowed same-sex couples to run for the four positions in homecoming. It was an equal opportunity issue that interested more in the UNT LGBT community after it was voted down than when it was first proposed.
I felt compelled to pass on your paragraph on student movements. They seem almost to be starting from no where, with a little help from a local street-activist group called Queer LiberAction.
Personally, I've never been much involved in the LGBT movement for equal rights except for being out of the closet to everyone (visibility is an important component). This past summer I've started getting involved though, attending rallies and marches, and am now even an officer at our University's LGBT student-run org, which is more social- and educational- focused (hence the need for the politically-focused group). It's a start. And I've been very active about having students and alumni (and just local activists) write entries for our brand new blog. We even have a National Equlaity March series going.
It seems to be an important time of change in the area here. It's satisfying to have started being a part of the change.
- Jake Richert
Check out the blog that I mentioned if you wish:
http://gladuntblog.blogspot.com/
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