Four groups competed for student attention on Low Plaza today, a confluence of causes amidst an already eventful “Earth Week” and following yesterday’s demonstrations by LionPAC, Filasteen, Lucha & Co. Today’s events featured Darfur, Manhattanville, drugs, and cardboard boxes.
Amnesty International was out promoting Darfur Awareness Week with a mock refugee camp, apparently the hottest thing in student activism these days. They’ll be holding a vigil
tonight at 8:00 PM, which organizers have promised will wrap up at least a half hour before the vigil for Virginia Tech students at 9:00.
At the same time, SCEG and the Coalition to Preserve Community pushed an issue closer to home, and brought it even closer to Bollinger’s home, where they’d tied balloons with slogans like “LEE! Don’t destroy West Harlem!” to protest the Manhattanville expansion. Earlier, they’d set up information tables on the Sundial to counter the “Manhattanville Open Houses” hosted in Roone Arledge once in a while. CPC leader Tom DeMott led the little band in familar chants of “Manhattanville, NOT FOR SALE!” Listen to an interview with DeMott and student Bryan Mercer on WBAI this morning in the
7:00 hour.
Meanwhile, Students for Sensible Drug Policy focused on the pressing issues of the time–or at least the pressing issues of this Friday, April 20–and CollegeBoxes was at the forefront of the cause of putting your possessions in cardboard boxes and paying them money to store them. Oh, there was also a blood donation truck.
– LBD & DHI
17 Comments
@alert BREAKING NEWS at spectator, it’s huge and scary
@ugh the poor darfur people were being totally drowned out by SCEG and stopcolumbia.org (why does columbia allow people to take over the sundial and unfurl an…anti-columbia banner? seriously.)
I mean, come on, thousands of people dying vs. “evictions” that are really relocations with sweet cash deals handed out by columbia. I’m sorry, why was the latter hogging all the attention?
@No worries, we’re going strong till 6pm tomorrow.
Also, CU Amnesty is hosting a speaker panel tomorrow, featuring the Jack Snyder from the Poli Sci Department, Jeff Freeman – executive director of Emergency USA (a humanitarian aid group in Darfur) & Stephanie Klein-Ahlbrant from the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. So you get the Academic, Humanitarian & UN perspective. 602 Ham, 4/19, 7-8.30 pm Free food + drinks
@Idea: Get Mamdani on the panel. Then I’ll go.
@we tried Mamdani was busy. Should still be great though
@McFister Because Tom DeMott is a self-righteous ass.
@well what can Columbia do about Columbia?
what can Columbia do about Darfur?
not saying we shouldn’t talk about Darfur, but you can’t just compare death counts.
@columbia columbia could commit minds to working out resolutions, money to send humanitarian aid, student volunteers to distribute and coordinate such aid.
or, it could let itself be extorted by people offended they’re not being bribed enough to get off their underutilized property.
you decide.
@Darfur As the son of a Janjaweed marauder , I feel very threatened by these racist displays. Why can’t I tell my story…
@Darfur come back tonight for Dinner from Appletrees at the Darfur Camp. There will be an interactive google earth feature over Darfur that traces the crisis, a candlelight vigil at 8pm, a photo-exhibit, & of course, lots of actions + informational material.
@Actually Amnesty was out in force in early Jan in freezing weather for hours, if you remember the awareness event they had with tombstones with facts on them. The reason activists work mostly in the Spring is because no one is out in the winter!
..And the coffee thing worked like a charm.
@DoctorSchuess My favorite part about the Darfur people was what they were shouting across the steps: “Free Coffee!” Not trying to appeal to our sympathies, or responsibilities as global citizens, but our caffeine addictions.
@what i've noticed no one protests during the colder winter months. they’re all fair-weather activists.
@Hah. Spoken like a man who wasn’t out there at the antiwar protest, back when there was snow on the ground.
@Anonymous Anti-war kids (estimated as many as 600) were out on a day when the wind chill dropped well into the teens!
@yes oh college boxes. always a dependable community presence.
@It's my drugs in a box?