Thursday, April 21, 2005
Education is a left!
More URM exaggerationification.
A group of roughly 50 students accompanied by police escorts marched down a blocked-off Telegraph Avenue yesterday chanting "Education is a right, not just for the rich and white." They were protesting a system they claim has become inaccessible to low-income and minority students.
Of all the campuses to complain about white people, doing so on Berkeley seems the silliest. "Oh, yeah, and also Asians. We hate Asians, too."
Organizers from the year-old network Action in Defense of Education were joined by groups like the Third World Liberation Front and the campus service worker union.
The union? The union is asking for more money, but wants poorer students on campus?
In Sacramento, the University of California Students Association and California State Student Association held a funeral procession for the California dream in protest of Schwarzenegger's education cuts.
And they wonder why we don't like the UCSA. You see, when you go through a great deal of effort to make an enemy of the people who have control of these things, it tends to work against you when you then ask those people to do things for you.
"While you're patting yourselves on the back because you're so smart, there are kids who, through K-12, didn’t have the skills or resources to compete with you. It's all structural problems," said senior Jorge Roman. 'But at least we have 30,000 students realizing there's a problem."
I agree! But... uh... if that's what you're concerned about, shouldn't you be pushing for more work on the K-12 schools, rather than demanding the university deal with it?
"It breeds violence because there's no opportunity, and then people start complaining," Roman said. "If they put more time into funding education instead of new prisons, I guarantee this kind of crime wouldn't exist."
Can you really? It won't exist at all? Are you willing to stake your reputation on that guarantee?
Still, Poorsina said California's fiscal problems prevent anyone from coming out on top, despite UC doing "at least everything in our power to give aid to the neediest students."
Ravi Poorsina is a UC spokesperson. Janet Gilmore was more fun, but Poorsina has the right last name for this issue. At least everything in their power, they say.
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