Listen:
When I came to this school, it had a radical presence. It wasn’t by any means the main scene in town, but it – we – existed, and we organized, and it mattered. In the years that I’ve been attending Conn, that presence, embodied in large part by CCLeft, has dwindled down to an unrecognizable form of its former self, if it even exists at all anymore.
CCLeft was a chapter of the national organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). It functioned as a political forum, where teach-ins could educate those who came to the weekly and sometimes twice-weekly meetings. We worked with the New London community, and spoke with Conn staff to see what kind of support they needed from students. We chalked for fair wages, promoted the college’s divestment from multinational corporations that propped up the corrupt, murderous regime in Sudan, voiced our opposition to the celebration of colonial imperialism, protested the wars abroad, even draped a cloth proclaiming the genocidal history of Christopher Columbus over the statue honoring him downtown on the day in October devoted to the destroyer of worlds and culture. We fought to remove unethically-made clothing from the campus bookstore, and led a campaign against the violently anti-union Coca-Cola, even painting anarchical clear nail polish over the plugs of the vending machines that sold these corrupt, nutrient-free products.
These actions didn’t instantly transform the world, but they did draw attention. And they built community. And they could be really, really fun.
I certainly haven’t been at the forefront of the effort to keep CCLeft alive, to continue the beat of its southpaw activist heart. This editorial is my last for The College Voice, and it’s not about just one organization. Rather, it’s about what is lost when organizing becomes splintered between groups working for their own hyperspecific causes. It’s a conversation I would like to have with you, and for you to have among yourselves, among my fellow seniors and in future classes. It’s a conversation about the direction of efforts and care on this campus.
Because we do care, don’t we? In classes we discuss and investigate sweatshop labor inequity, institutionalized racism and the ever-present legacy of slavery, environmental degradation and its gendered impacts, the push to drill for oil in areas that should be protected wildlife reserves, religious zealotry and the misogyny it propagates – the list goes on.
But what are we doing about it?
In the events of last summer, Iranian students died to protest in the name of democracy. How many of us at Conn are actively organizing around these issues?
In a national climate in which our very president gained credibility and made an impact as a community organizer, we privileged college students should be doing our part to challenge the authority structures that keep those who are different out and down. The powers that keep us fighting two bogus wars. Since former Veep Dick Cheney spoke at the Coast Guard Academy two years ago, there has not been (to the best of my knowledge) a single protest for peace involving Connecticut College. To me, this is unacceptable. I acknowledge my own role in the problem, the lack of effort I have expended to unite those who would fight for these issues, which are quite literally issues of life and death. But in our work on the newspaper, we try hard to educate, to reach out to the larger community about these issues.
I hope it’s been at least a little effective. It will have been worth the late nights and late papers, to me, if you’ve ever been angered by something you’ve read in these pages. Whether at us and our staff or at the subjects of our articles, outrage can be one of the most powerful catalysts in the world.
So please, I’m leaving. Get up and organize politically. Community involvement in New London will flounder if it’s only about volunteerism and eating in restaurants, activities that have their place, but are ineffective in isolation. There is an activist community already long established in New London, and it’s time Connecticut College became a solid part of it. So next time you drive by the intersection of State and Bank and see an older gentleman carrying a Veterans for Peace sign, get out, and ask what you can do. And if you’re ever lucky enough to encounter the sonorous chants of the Raging Grannies, a colorful group I would feel fortunate to be a part of in the future, I hope you’ll sing along.
– Sam Herndon
Image by S. Borchert ’08 from SpeakLeft, a publication of CCLeft.
