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cpj_20190515
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The Cooper Point Journal (May 15, 2019)
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15 May 2019
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extracted text
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@yourCPJ
3
M. Quarrels
ARTIST INTERVIEW
5
Public Records Stall
OP-ED BY DANIEL VOGEL
10
the cooper point journal
WOBBLIES DEMAND
ADMINISTRATIVE CUTS
The Evergreen State College Newspaper Since 1971| May 15, 2019
IWW Rally
Art by: @mad_metals
The Cooper Point Journal
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02 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
FROM THE ARCHIVES “Students in the Tacoma campus program With Liberty and Justice for
Whom? end fall quarter with a mock trial on Tues., Dec. 7, 2017. They argued the speech rights of NFL players to protest during the National Anthem.”
HOW WE WORK
The Cooper Point Journal is produced by students at The Evergreen State College, with funding from student
fees and advertising from local businesses. The Journal is published for free every other Wednesday during the
school year and distributed throughout the Olympia area.
Our content is also available online at www.cooperpointjournal.com.
Our mission is to provide an outlet for student voices, and to inform and entertain the Evergreen community
and the Olympia-area more broadly, as well as to provide a platform for students to learn about operating a
news publication.
Our office is located on the third floor of the Campus Activities Building (CAB) at Evergreen State College
in room 332 and we have open student meetings from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. every Wednesday. Come early if you’d
like to chat with the editor!
WORK FOR US
We accept submissions from any student at The Evergreen State College, and also from former students,
faculty, and staff. We also hire some students onto our staff, who write articles for each issue and receive a
learning stipend.
Have an exciting news topic? Know about some weird community happening? Enjoy that new hardcore
band? Come talk to us and write about it.
We will also consider submissions from non-Evergreen people, particularly if they have special knowledge on
the topic. We prioritize current student content first, followed by former students, faculty and staff, and then
general community submissions. Within that, we prioritize content related to Evergreen first, followed by
Olympia, the state of Washington, the Pacific Northwest, etc.
To submit an article, reach us at cooperpointjournal@gmail.com.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We want to hear from you! If you have an opinion on anything we’ve reported in the paper, or goings-on in
Olympia or at Evergreen, drop us a line with a paragraph or two (100 - 300 words) for us to publish in the
paper. Make sure to include your full name, and your relationship to the college—are you a student, staff,
graduate, community member, etc. We reserve the right to edit anything submitted to us before publishing,
News
Industrial Workers of the World South Sound General Education Union rally on Red Square, May 8, 2019. DANIEL VOGEL.
Wobblies Demand
Administrative
Cuts Union
Delivers
Letter to Board
of Trustees and
Rallies on Red
Square
by Mason Soto &
Daniel Vogel
The Industrial Workers
of the World South Sound
General Education Union,
or the GEU, held a rally on
Red Square last Wednesday,
May 8, in a call to re-open
the pool and fund the arts
department at Evergreen.
Union members went to
the Board of Trustees Meeting, which was moved from
its regular on-campus location to the Lord Mansion.
On Twitter, the GEU accused the board of meeting
“off campus to avoid our
rally and to instill more Austerity.”
The union delivered a list
of demands to the board, including a $1 million cut from
the administration and halving of the president’s salary,
the re-opening of the pool
as a worker-ran cooperative,
the re-opening of Photoland
facilities, the costume shop,
and the experimental theater, and re-hiring of staff
and faculty who were let go
because of budget cuts.
The letter ends by stating
that, “If meaningful action is
not taken to meet these demands within the next fourteen days, further action will
be taken.”
The GEU tweeted that,
“Despite the top administrators holding their austerity
session within a palace, and
us crashing their bougee [sic]
party, we are still rallying on
campus at 12:30 pm!”
“Cuts to higher education
are often part & parcel with
cuts to P-12. It’s time to roll
back austerity at every level!” said Evergreen’s student
branch of the Washington
Education Association on
twitter. On the same day, sixty-thousand teachers across
Oregon walked out to protest
underfunding.
The union posted fliers
advertising the rally on Red
Square, asking supporters to
wear red at the event. The
rally opened with an indigenious land acknowledgment
from Native Pathways student Levi Harter, and proceeded with a reading of the
demand letter and speeches
from community members.
Political economy professor Peter Bohmer gave
a speech about how Evergreen budget cuts represent
economic austerity, as they
have closed the pool and theater but left police budget
untouched. Bohmer called
the budget cuts and enrollment decline, “a vicious spiral
downwards.”
Later, rally-goers interrupted the Spring Crafts
Fair held at the same time in
the CAB, marching in with
chants about supporting the
arts.
“All of a sudden they started a little parade coming in
with their megaphone yelling,
passing out flyers. It was kind
of inspiring, but also distressing.” said Robin Chapman, an
Evergreen sophomore.
The GEU began organizing last fall, and has held
a number of rallies on Red
Square. This is the second
demand letter they have delivered to the administration,
after the first last fall listed
demands to hire a political
economy professor and halt
the hiring of new police officers. In February, the GEU
claimed that Evergreen had
complied with their demands,
MAY 15, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 03
Community
CCBLA Director,
Ellen Shortt Sanchez
“Merging The Divide Between
Community Involvement And
Higher-Education”
E
llen Shortt Sanchez is devoted
to
collaboration
and advocacy. In
her professional life, Shortt
Sanchez attends to the partnership and academic needs
of The Evergreen State College. As the director of Evergreen’s Center for Community-Based Learning and
Action (CCBLA), she finds
herself merging the divide
between community involvement and higher-education. Shortt Sanchez also
demonstrates her strengths
and leadership abilities
within her role at Sheltonbased activist group, Elevate
Mason County.
In 2006, Shortt Sanchez
began working for the CCBLA. Her efforts have resulted in strong ties between
campus life and local communities and organizations.
In addition, her work is centered on the idea that education should be both accessible and service-oriented.
“We really want to work
and emphasize the community partnership piece of the
work that happens in the center. We are a public service
center, which is another important piece of Evergreen’s
commitment to serving the
community, and to making
sure higher-ed is accessible
beyond just tuition-paying
students,” said Shortt Sanchez. “We’re academics, so
that’s another piece that really has so much excitement
and promise.”
“I would say mostly we
By Marta Tahja-Syrett
work with academic programs and faculty who are
already engaging in, a lot of
times, programs that work
with Literacy and Education
for Adults with Disabilities,
or Gateways for Incarcerated
Youth, or Spanish-Speaking
World,” said Shortt Sanchez.
Shortt Sanchez believes
that the Gateways for Incarcerated Youth program
works to bring higher education to youth behind bars.
According to Evergreen’s
website, the Gateways program provides students with
the opportunity to work as
mentors for youth incarcerated at juvenile correctional
facilities. Faculty members
also lead seminars which incarcerated youth can attend
and earn credit for—free
of charge. Since Gateways’
1996 commencement, “over
1,000 incarcerated youth
have made academic gains
in attendance, grade-level
promotion, and unlocked
their potential for change.”
Shortt Sanchez sees the accomplishments
achieved
by this program as being
an important aspect of the
CCBLA’s contribution to the
greater community.
Evergreen’s on-campus
food bank, a collaborative
effort with the Thurston
County Food Bank, is one
program that the CCBLA
helped to implement. Shortt
Sanchez stated that the center also offers “a community-service work-study model, which is working with a
team of 15 to 20 organiza-
04 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
tions that students can use
their work-study award to be
able to work [with].” This
allows for students to negate
debt while doing meaningful
work at a local level.
Many of Olympia’s organizations have been developed by Evergreen graduates, and current students
still have an integral role in
terms of decision-making
and volunteership. “I think
that Evergreen really is a
resource for the community
and that we should kind of
be looking outward and keep
thinking about ways that we
can keep resources going towards the community,” said
Shortt Sanchez.
The CCBLA is dedicated
to other obligations, as well,
such as Community to Community Day. During Community to Community Day,
new students fulfill their
orientation duties by working alongside local organizations. In addition, the
CCBLA annually facilitates
Farm Worker Justice Day,
“which aims to build awareness and support for the efforts of farmworkers to gain
safe and just working conditions in the United States”
(according to Evergreen’s
website).
Shortt Sanchez believes
that the CCBLA’s fostering
of community-based learning helps students to determine where they want to
go in life. Oftentimes, such
hands-on approaches to
learning can lead a student
towards, or even away from,
a specific career choice.
In Shortt Sanchez’s opinion, it is just as important to
figure out what you’re not
interested in doing as what
“lights the fire” and captivates one’s attentions. “I
think really trying things out
is a way that you can figure
out ‘Is this for me? Is this
not for me?’”
In a community-based
setting, Shortt Sanchez believes “there’s kinds of
ways to see visions, and
see how we can keep working towards them.” The key
objective is to work in collaboration with mentors.
Mentorship helps solidify
actions needed for change
and growth—both on a personal and community level.
Students and mentors can
start conversations along the
lines of “I really want to get
there, and hopefully, we can
get there together.”
“Our center is all about
helping people engage in the
community, and I in my own
life practice that, as well,
and have volunteer commitments outside of my work
life,” said Shortt Sanchez.
“Elevate Mason County is
really close to my heart. It
started in 2016, after the
election, and really was a
time when we were hearing
news reports about Mason
County.”
Shortt Sanchez said that
these news reports categorized the majority of people’s opinions, something
that she felt undermined the
differing beliefs, and values,
of Mason County.
During this time, members of Mason County found
themselves thinking “‘this
doesn’t sound like it represents our community.’”
Through the birth of Elevate
Mason County, Shortt Sanchez wanted to demonstrate
that this was in fact true, that
Mason County’s ideological
core is actually diverse in
nature.
Shortt Sanchez sees the
long-term mission of Elevate Mason County as being
centered around immigrant
rights. By taking “direction
from leadership of color, and
from community organizations like CIELO Shelton,”
Elevate Mason County can
mobilize community members to support the needs of
Mason County’s immigrant
community. Elevate Mason
County specifically looks at
the dangers of immigration
enforcement, such as forced
family separation.
Shortt Sanchez feels that
community discourse is important in regard to truly
understanding
viewpoints
external to oneself. Through
the process of listening, differing routes towards equity
and working together can
be articulated. Shortt Sanchez believes that neighbors
with varying opinions need
to speak to one another,
because “if we don’t have
those conversations, we
can’t move the needle.”
Working alongside Elevate Mason County, CIELO of Shelton and Mason
County Climate Justice
helped to sponsor Workers and Neighbors Solidarity Feast, in honor of this
year’s May Day. According
to their website, Elevate Mason County suggested that
individuals bring “signs of
solidarity and support for
Workers Rights, Immigrant
Rights and Human Rights.”
After sign-wavers occupied
a space along Shelton’s 1st
Ave, the group gathered for
a potluck.
Elevate Mason County has
also hosted guest speakers,
such as Zoltan Grossman—
a professor at The Evergreen
State College who published
Unlikely Alliances: Native
Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural
Lands, in 2017. According
to Elevate Mason County’s
website, Grossman “spoke
on building diverse alliances to achieve racial justice within communities.”
Shortt Sanchez, referencing
the sentiment present within
Grossman’s work, stated:
“that example of how communities have come together
to fight hate—we think we
can do that, too.”
Artist Interview
M.
Quarrels’ : Mad Metals
Interview by Brittanyana Pierro
How long have you been doing
metal work?
1 ½ years.
How did you get into it?
I was scrolling through the
class catalog and nothing sounded
really interesting. I’d been doing
a lot of 2-D art already. So, scientific illustration and environmental science art. Everything was
related to my focus back then. But
this one class was a fine metals,
‘let’s make some stuff, let’s talk
about things’ class. And I was like,
‘all right, I could do that.’ I kind
of wanted a break after doing this
really long internship in New
Zealand. I just kind of went in
headfirst and fell in love with
it. It’s crazy.
learning curve. You have to mess
up a lot to realize how the material actually works and also how
it doesn’t work. As much as I can
teach someone how to solder, you
just have to do it and experience
it to figure out your exact process.
I’ve recognized that especially recently because I’ve been a Teachers Assistant in the Fine Metals
Studio for the last three quarters.
So I’ve been working on my own
practice and my own art, and then
teaching all of these newbies how
to do like
What were you doing in
New Zealand?
I was living on a sheep and
goat farm with two people, a married couple. We were processing
animals, we did a lot of butchering. We did a lot of cheese making
from the milk that we harvested
from animals and did a lot of farm
work: building stuff, welding
stuff, making stuff. So I thought
it was kind of appropriate when
I came back to school, I still was
kind of working with my hands
and doing less of sitting in an art
studio drawing things. Following
that idea and philosophy of making things from the ground up.
Living there, and having nothing
except the things that we’d built
really pushed my artistic focus a
lot further.
You can outsource so much
of what you make as an artist.
Whether it be the raw materials
or other components of the stuff
you’re making, but I think it’s really important to have a part in everything that I’m making.
So you just stumbled upon metalworking through a class at Evergreen? Can you tell me about
the process you went through, initially, being in that class and how
your art has grown since then?
In the studio, it’s a really steep
really basic stuff.
When you’re first introduced
to fine metal art, there is so much
scrambling and messing up and
wasting material and being really
frustrated. But I think, as I said
earlier, you have to really mess up
and screw around and create a lot
of garbage before you can get into
the nice, shiny, pretty stuff. Things
that are the prettiest and shiniest
have gone through the most steps
of processing finishing, polishing,
filing, and planning.
I walked into that class, having no experience or knowledge
about the material at all. And then
coming out of a year and a half,
two years later, with, like, all this
knowledge is kind of like, watching myself grow and change
the way a piece I’m working on
would. And it’s not a pretty process. Everything that I make looks
horrible before it looks good. You
have to really like climb through
the, you know, metaphorical Lake,
forest vines, or whatever, to get
to the final finished process. And
yeah, I don’t think anybody realizes how much work goes into fine
metalsmithing, and metalworking
in general. It’s really not easy.
What is the actual day-to-day,
physical process of soldering and
metal working?
I do both welding and soldering. In the large metal studio, I
mostly do welding either MIG or
TIG welding.
So welding is where you use
both the parent material and an
additive material usually a welding rod, to melt everything together. If you’re trying to put two
pieces of metal together, you can
just like fill that in with like a filler
rod/ metal. So you’re melting
three parts together.
When soldering, you are
still using
a filling
element,
but the
two
pieces
that you’re
joining have
to be perfectly lined
up with no gaps in it. The
exciting things and fiery
things, like working with torches
and molten metal, are the things I
like to do most in the studio.
A lot of what I do is very organic, carnal. It’s not like perfect,
it doesn’t look like some engagement ring that you’re going to
buy from Zales or something. It’s
not super shiny, not super high
polished, nothing I work with
is really high material. Using
objects that are inherently very
separated from the human idea
of perfection makes it my style.
I like to kind of fight that idea of
jewelry being high polished and
super exclusive thing. Let’s take
a step back and think about why
we wear jewelry and what we
want jewelry to represent for ourselves.
Why do you wear jewelry?
What do you think it’s for?
That’s a really interesting
question. Because why does
anyone wear jewelry? Why are
humans so attracted to shiny
things and to putting holes in
our bodies? People have been
adorning themselves for forever, you know? Since the begin-
ning of time jewelry has been
something to identify class and
culture and different religions.
For me personally, I grew up
such a tomboy. I cut my hair
short, I didn’t want to do anything that was particularly girly.
Now that I’m growing into my
identity more I’m realizing that
these things [pieces of jewelry]
aren’t necessarily associated
like sexuality, or like gender.
I’m kind of trying to break down
that bar-
rier.
I like to make sharp things.
Brass knuckles aren’t allowed
in the state of Washington, and
you can’t make weapons on
campus.
But we’re in a day and age
where we need to like protect
ourselves. I don’t want to carry
pepper spray in my bag if I don’t
have to. So I’ll make stuff that I
can put on and walk around and
feel that I can protect myself in.
I like to make things that people
could rip off in a second and use
to protect [themselves]. I never
really wanted to have jewelry
that’s just for jewelry sake, you
know, I want [my art] to have a
purpose.
You’ll find that like, I’m not
wearing any jewelry right now,
because I’m gonna go to the
studio after this. And jewelers
don’t really wear jewelry. When
you’re working in the studio, you
don’t want to fuckup the things
that you’re wearing when you’re
making something else.
Okay, so what materials do
you most often work with?
I like fine silver and sterling
silver. Sterling silver being 925
parts, silver and 75 parts copper,
and fine silver, just being 100%
silver. They serve different purposes, like fine silver doesn’t tarnish as quickly because it doesn’t
have the copper component. All
of the chain that I make is usually
fine silver.
I like working with organic
objects too, so I’ve
cast a lot of flowers, and a lot
of bones,
or pieces of
skel-
eton.
I ’ m
really
obsessed
with the idea
of
ephemerality and longevity, and
how we can preserve objects
that would otherwise not be able
to, like have a second life or live
longer than their original lifespan. Growing up, my dad was a
paleontologist, and we worked
with preserving bone a lot. Being
raised in that kind of philosophy,
I’m still wanting to embody that
idea of preservation.
Is there more that you would
like to share? Or talk about?
To the artists who are continuing in the same path I am: be tenacious.
Don’t listen to people when
they tell you no. I’ve gotten this
far at Evergreen breaking all of
the rules not listening to what any
of the deans tell me. Keep making people excited and show your
enthusiasm. Get angry! Stand
up for the art, stand up for yourself. Display your art places you
know. You just have to voice that
you care and participate as actively as you can. Opportunities
will present themselves to you,
but you don’t get there without
being excited.
MAY 15, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 05
Arts & Culture
M
YEATTS
Q
U
A
R
R
E
L
S
“I never really wanted to
have jewelry that’s just
for jewelry sake; I want
my art to have
a purpose.”
J E W L E R Y
Let’s take a step back and think about why we wear jewelry and what we want jewelry to represent for us ourselves.
06 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
Arts & Culture
A lot of what I do is very organic, carnal. It’s not
perfect, it doesn’t look like some
engagement ring that you’re going to buy
“There’s something else
from Zales or something.
that’s happening between the
lines that we don’t always
really see in media or in art”
@mad_metals
MAY 15, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 07
Stuff 2 Do
by Daniel Vogel
WEDNESDAY 5/15
FRIDAY 5/17
TUESDAY 5/21
SATURDAY 5/25
ALL CAMPUS
MENTORING DAY
DOMINION
MARCH TO END THE
SWEEPS
BEARAXE, THE
WHAGS, CEDAR SAP
Library Lobby. 1:30 p.m.
Faculty will review your academic
statement, help you plan your path
of study, and, of course, mentor.
Free pizza!
CO-CREATING OUR
CONFLICT CULTURE
Sem 2 B1105. 2-5 p.m.
Their flyer is kind of long, so
here’s the gist: “Engaging with
our conflicts can tend the web of
interdependence and honor change
as a life force that moves through
all things. Every conflict is an
opportunity to realign with the web
of live.” Yahoo! Free.
THURSDAY 5/16
RACHEL CARSON
FORUM
Communications Building, 2749
McCann Plaza NW. 5-9 p.m.
– Rachel Carson Forum.
Keynote speakers will present on
environmental ethics & whale
sighting citizen science. Workshops
FOOL FOR LOVE
Sem 2 D4107. 7:30 p.m., thru
Saturday
Written by award-winning
playwright Sam Shepard and
directed by Jack Hjorten. Part of
“Out of the Ashes: The Evergreen
Theater Festival.”
GO, DOG. GO!
Olympia Family Theater, thru
Sunday
Repeats every weekend thru June
2. 7 P.M. on Fridays, 2 P.M. on
Saturday/Sunday. There’s a lot
of theater going on this month,
including this family-friendly
musical. Think “Cats” but with
dogs, and better. $15 youth, $20
adults, with a “pay-what-you-can”
performance on the 16th.
Purce Hall 1. 7 p.m.
You’ve likely seen the posters from
the vegan club stating that “you’ve
been lied to.” You need to see this
movie to learn the truth about
animal agriculture, which, up until
this point, you thought involved
sunshine, rainbows and kissing
chickens till they die of old age.
Free.
ALLEN OTTE
Recital Hall. 1 - 3 p.m. Free.
Otte will lecture and perform a
piece on the Innocent Project, a
national organization dedicated to
exonerating innocent incarcerated
people. Sponsored by “Don’t Bake
a Cake, Redesign the Kitchen!”
and “Current Economic Issues and
Social movements.” Free.
Isthmus Park. 5 p.m.
Just Housing will march to City
Hall to speak at a Council meeting.
They demand the end of “sweeps
of houseless people from public
property.” March to end the sweeps.
WEDNESDAY 5/22
CHASTITY BELT W/
RED RIBBON
Capitol Theater. 8 p.m.
Pitchfork’s Sasha Geffen says
Chastity Belt’s last album “relays
the psychological slog of trying
really hard just to be OK,” which I
could really use right now. All ages
w/ 21+ lounge. $12 OFS members,
$15 GA.
SATURDAY 5/18
THURSDAY 5/23
OPEN MIC NIGHT
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Arrive early to sign up for the open
mic at 5:30. C.I.R.C.L.E. will host
native comedian Deanna M.A.D,
who will conduct a Q&A at 8.
This mind-bending musical runs
in reverse chronological order. Part
of the “Out of the Ashes” theater
festival.
Evergreen Longhouse. 6 p.m.
SHOW AT MCCOYS
McCoy’s Tavern. 9 p.m.
Some metal bands “from Denmark
/ Turkey” are playing, but I
can’t find any information about
it online, and they have those
unintelligible black metal logos that
I can’t read. Looks cool though.
MONDAY 5/20
CLIMBING GYM
GRAND RE-OPENING
Recital Hall. 7:30 p.m.
Octopas Cafe. 8:30 p.m.
KEXP describes “funk, jazz and
proto-punk” band BEARAXE as
“Lead Belly meets Led Zeppelin
in the body of a Black woman.”
Sounds like a good time. All ages
with 21+ bar. $8-12 sliding scale.
QUEER PROM
SPSCC. 8 - 10 p.m. Sliding
Scale.
Rainbow Alliance & Stonewall
Youth are putting on a
“monochromatic dance.” Attendees
are encouraged to dress head-totoe in one color and one color
only. Sober & all ages. Sliding scale
donations.
TUESDAY 5/28
GOLDEN GEODUCK
AWARDS
Longhouse. 7 p.m.
Greeners Planning Activities hosts
the annual Student Activities
awards show. Vote and nominate at
bit.ly/ggavote. Free.
FRIDAY 5/24
STREET MEDIC
TRAINING
Varying times thru Sunday.
Learn basic first aid, chemical
weapons defense, and other skills
for being effective medics at riots
and protests. 5 – 9 P.M. Friday, 9
A.M. – 6 P.M. Sat. & Sun. $20.
Email olymedictraining@riseup.net
for info.
CRC. 6 p.m.
Celebrate the re-opening with free
food and climbing shoes.
08 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
Bee and flower on Red Square, 2009. KATHERINE B. TURNER.
Opinion
KAOS TOP 30
89.3
THE WEEK OF May 15
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Dan Costa – Skyness ( Jazz)
The Big Cheese Band – Among The Stars (FCB)
Sceptre Fretpen – Earthquake Park (Experimental)
Kelly’s Lot - Can’t Take My Soul (Blues)
Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising (Rock)
The Cash Box Kings - Hail To The Kings! (Blues)
Los Straitjackets - Channel Surfing (Rock)
Yeah That’s It - S/T (Electronic)
Mimi Fox - This Bird Still Flies ( Jazz)
Berlin Taxi - Contract (Electronic)
Helen Trio - Blind To Armageddon (Rock)
La Fille - Alright Already (Rock)
Peter More - Shoulder (Rock)
Your Heart Breaks - Drone Butch Blues (Pop)
Andrew Bird - My Finest Work Yet (Rock)
Sasami - S/T (Rock)
Emma Hill - Magnesium Dreams (FCB)
Quin Galavis - Victim/Nonvictim Pt. 2
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Distant Sky
Ranzel x Kendrick - Texas Cactus (FCB)
Ordinary Elephant - Honest (FCB)
The Mountain Movers - Pink Skies
Damien Jurado - In The Shape Of A Storm (Rock)
Femi Kuti - One People One World (African)
Sam Huber - Song For Mona (Soul)
Blvk H3ro - Immortal Steppa (Reggae)
Field Medic - Fade Into The Dawn (FCB)
Native Harrow - Happier Now (FCB)
Money For Rope - Picture Us (Rock)
Cosmonauts - Star 69 (Rock)
Black Students in
low Diversity Areas :
High School
Activism
By Brittanyana Pierro
The summer of 2014, I remember, was
a good one. I was 15, gaining independence and had my best friend Samantha
to spend the summer with. My sister
Melodi was still in town before she left
for college, and the two of us got to spend
an entire month in San Francisco with
our other sister Nicholle.
My sophomore year of high school
came up quickly, and it started off really
good. I had a new friend group this year,
mostly Samantha’s friends, and they were
all pretty and cool. If I were to put it in
terms of high school popularity, we were
the coolest of the not-as-cool girls. It was
an upgrade for me, because the year prior
I was still with my middle school friends,
whose status was slightly less and they
were also all very boring. My new friends
liked to smoke weed, and got invited to
(some) parties. And they were just generally more fun.
I never really got the chance to get
close with any of them except Sam and
sort of Anna, and one of my older middle
school friends, Emma.
Towards the middle of fall quarter,
probably September of 2014, I came into
an incident with one of me closer friends
in the group, Anna. Basically, what had
happened was; there used to be this app
called Ask.fm where people would ask
each other questions anonymously. One
Friday night, Anna and her friend Marie had decided to get on the app and
respond to rude questions people asked
them by just typing ‘NIGGERRRR” in
all capital letters. When I saw their acts
dumbfuckery, I was immediately shocked
and irritated, and asked the two, through
the app, to not say it anymore. Their response was them mocking me, and in
turn calling me a nigger. I was pissed!
The following week at school, I was
still pissed. I talked to a bunch of people
about it, including my friend Tyra, who I
would later start a Black Student Union
with. The consensus was that I should say
something to Anna.
So, at the end of the lunch period that
Monday, I walked up to her and told her
off. I told her she had no right to use that
word, especially with a hard R. I said that
she had no idea of the implications of
the word, and how it negatively affected
me and generations of people before me.
She was taken aback, with little to no response, and in the light of the fear in her
eyes, I walked to class satisfied.
However, after this incident happened I was quickly isolated from her
friend group, and our drama was outed
throughout school. She went around
talking shit about me, saying I was crazy
and loud, etc., and all the while I was finalizing plans with Tyra and a few other
Black students to start my school’s first
ever Black Student Union.
In the wake of all this, the Black Lives
Matter movement was at its strongest.
In response to the deaths of Eric Garner
and Mike Brown that had happened over
the summer of 2014, cities of people were
coming out and marching. My friends
and I wanted to start the club because
we wanted to talk about these issues with
other black people, and people on campus in general.
We had our first meeting on Oct.
14, and we had a pretty good show out.
Our meeting was held in our advisor Mr.
Monroe’s classroom, #15. There were no
Black teachers at our school, so we chose
Monroe to be our advisor because he had
a black wife, the Olympic athlete Sharon Day-Monroe. Mr. Monroe was our
school’s health teacher, so almost every
student on campus knew how to find his
creaky and cultured classroom. The room
lay in the oldest building on campus,
right across from the school’s cafeteria. It
had old oak floors and a tall vaulted ceiling, large windows lined one side of the
room, and looked out over the football
field.
The turn out of our first meeting was
pretty good, and we were super happy
with the progress being made. Each coordinator had a position, each club member had set tasks and we all had very big
dreams.
Tamir Rice’s shooting on Nov. 22 was
a tragedy that brought a dark and gloomy
presence into my world. At home, there
MAY 15, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 09
Opinion
Brittanyana Pierro (left center), along with the three other BSU coordinators.
Public Records: No Equity
Without Transparency
By Daniel Vogel
was silence; in our BSU meetings, there
was silence. I felt this sense of frustration
bubble up in my tummy, watching white
kids with no care in the world walk past
my own world, that was crumbling. I
wished for actions, and riots and world
endings, so people could see what was
going on.
A few weeks later on the night of Dec.
4, my friend Naya sent me an IG message with the details of a protest happening before our towns annual Christmas
parade, the next day. Her message read
“Spread the word.” I immediately told
my sister Case, and we discussed the option of going for a while. I was nervous
about it, and so was she. We went back
and forth the night of Dec 4., until finally, we asked our Dad, who agreed we
should all go, and said he would join us.
We immidiately rushed to make a
sign. I pulled out my craft markers, and
an old poster board I had stored in my
closet. In quick precise lines, I traced
the outlines of my hands stretched out,
raised, onto the board. In between the
hands, my sister wrote ‘We Can’t Breath’
in bold red letters.
My family left the house at 5:30, and
arrived at the meeting location just in
time (CPT is real, but you can always
tell where our priorities lie). There was
a big show out of at least 75 people,
most of them white students from our
small towns university, Cal Poly San
Luis Obispo. As usual, we were the only
Black people in the crowd, but this time
instead of feeling isolated in the sea of
whiteness—I felt empowered.
We marched around downtown for
at least an hour, halting the parade. Our
chants were “Black Lives Matter,” Assata’s Prayer, and some others. I saw the
faces of classmates in the crowd, and
some teachers. I listened to white men
scream insults at me and my family, and
the families of people marching. I made
eye contact with my then crush, who’s
eyes showed me a mix of inquisition and
intimidation, followed by his raised hand
stretching out to form a peace sign. Ironically, the sign I was marching with read
‘No Justice, No Peace.’ His actions were
indicative of his complacency, or maybe
his support.
A reporter from Cal Poly’s student
paper stopped my dad for a quick interview. I looked to the back of the crowd
at my father, thoughtfully answering the
student’s questions.
In this moment, I felt myself shift. No
matter what, or who, I always knew what
side I was on.
#BLACKLIVESMATTER
ADVERTISEMENT.
Citizens of this state have the unalienable right to request records from the institutions that rule and represent them.
Evergreen's consistent failure to respond
to these records requests in a timely fashion shows that our administration see
themselves not as our representatives but
as unaccountable rulers.
Evergreen is now overdue on more
than 15 of our public records requests.
The CPJ staff continues to receive requests filed in 2017-2018, and a fall request for active public record requests
shows that the college still has active requests from national reporters related to
the 2017 protests. They have had almost
two years to respond to these requests,
which by any measure is not a "reasonable" amount of time to assemble and
review documents.
At times I suspect that this college is
not responding to public records on-time
to save face. This is a bad PR strategy, as
this editorial demonstrates. Furthermore,
it is illegal. It is an egregious violation
of our fundamental rights as citizens of
Washington State.
Evergreen's sole public records officer
quit in early April, and Evergreen did not
note this change in the state registry, as
they may be required to do so under state
law. Public records are now administered
by Chief Budget Officer Holly Joseph.
I'm sure she has plenty of other work to
do, as we seem to be in another one of
these perpetual budget crises. Evergreen
has not yet listed this open position in
their job postings.
This college cannot simultaneously
commit itself to equity and inclusion
while excluding its students from accessing public records in a timely fashion.
Untimely public records responses prevent us from ensuring that Evergreen's
commitments to equity go beyond hiring
speakers and re-naming classrooms. The
Evergreen administration is not a cohort
of Maoists or Leninists, who we should
trust to implement social justice in secret
ADVERTISEMENT.
10 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
and without checks and balances. Our
active requests include asks for texts between Joey Gibson and Evergreen police,
discussions of hidden camera purchases,
communications between the Department of Homeland Security and Evergreen police, and emails related to the
college's enforcement of its own Patriot
Act Policy. While "if you have nothing to
fear, you have nothing to hide" is some
fetid bullshit when applied to the individual, it is a legitimate indictment of our
school when it deliberately conceals its
actions which are done in our name.
Late responses to assignments may be
acceptable in some Evergreen classes, but
it is unacceptable to receive the same devil-may-care attitude from administrators.
Students pay to learn, and are due this
freedom. Admin are paid to administrate,
and one of their duties is to administrate
timely responses to public records. They
should immediately hire a cohort of temporary staff to work through their enormous backlog of records requests.
Some students receive reductions in
credit when they fail to complete assignments in a timely manner. Sometimes
they drop out. If the Evergreen administration can't take the heat, they need to
either drop out or receive a reduction in
credit.
The Board of Trustees and the Legislature should seriously consider complying with the IWW's demands for a slash
in administrative pay if the college administrators can't do their jobs. If President Bridges is consistently unable make
his staff do their jobs, he should quit or
be replaced, immediately.
The Board will meet in July to evaluate
Bridges performance, and they encourage you to email comments to tescbot@
evergreen.edu and hariss@evergreen.ed.
If Evergreen fails to resolve its public records problem, faculty, staff, students, and
every citizen of this state should strongly
consider a vote of "no confidence."
COMIX
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YOUR COMIX...
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WANT TO!
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send your comics to cooperpointjournal@gmail.com, with
the subject Comics Submission. Images should be
at least 300 dpi or drop off a hard copy to the CPJ
office, CAB 332 across from student activities.
For more information, as well as submission guidelines
and sizing requirments, visit us at
http://www.cooperpointjournal.com/submit/
MAY 15, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 11
12 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
cpj_20190515.pdf