Shane Wade
Opinion Editor
Every time an organization at VCU or around Richmond attempts to drum up support for a cause, I’m inevitably disappointed.
Today’s student activism is mostly student inaction. Whereas in the 1960s and ’70s, students literally took to the street in droves to advocate for their rights and causes, our generation creates Facebook events and throws down flags on the campus lawn.
When we do decide to take action, we assemble at a location, passively chant and hold up signs, as if the might of our voice alone would carry through to state legislatures. Even last week’s “Occupy Richmond” event displayed a disappointingly low amount of controversy and confrontational action.
When I read a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center that found the average American college student’s knowledge of civil rights history had significantly worsened over the passed decade, I wasn’t a bit surprised. Compare today’s rallies with comical signs and the rare protest march to the sit-in movements, boycotts, strikes, walk-outs and all the great acts of civil disobedience created by civil rights activists in the South.
If students actually knew about the history of public protest in America, I have no doubt that they’d be much more effective and persuasive in both getting their message across and achieving their desired goals. Just talking to students around our campus, I know that college students aren’t the apathetic archetypes that we’ve often been painted as by both media figures and ourselves in comedic sketches, opinion pieces and daily conversation.
We’re anxious. We’re ready to rally to support a cause. And we’re secretly disappointed in ourselves. We want to be Rosa Parks and become the symbol of a movement. We want to be Chris Jeon, the UCLA student that went to fight with rebels in Libya. We want to be leaders, but we’re too afraid to lead.
For the past few years, students have been captives of a catch-22. They’re not allowed to advocate for themselves against high tuition and post-graduate debt because they’re too busy working multiple jobs and maintaining their statuses as full-time students so they can graduate within four years and find a job that pays minimum wage. It’s nearly impossible to fault someone for not joining a pseudo-legal protest against a 7-percent tuition raise when the possibility of spending a night in jail could get you fired from the job that keeps you from becoming homeless.
But we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become passive and complacent in the face of bureaucracy and government, whether it be federal, state, local or collegiate. Student organizations need to become more efficient and outspoken in the methods they choose to spread their message if they are to be taken seriously. Instead of techniques that are visible but passive, they must take dramatic actions that gain the attention of onlookers, even if it does not bring them applause. That doesn’t mean staging a “flash mob” dance routine; it means becoming overtly crafty in the delivery of a message, but not so much so that it can be dismissed as cliché.
Whether that means dousing someone in paint or reenacting “The Hunger Artist,” isn’t for me to say, but it is for you to do.
Our students need to be reminded that actions speak louder than words and fortune favors the bold. The time for rallies is over, and the time for marches is here. Whether you’re boycotting textbook prices, joining the Occupy movement or trying to raise awareness about sexual assault, be active in your activism.