67 CommentsWhile you’re going to have to wait for our full review of Orgo Night, we bring you the script of tonight’s performance by the Columbia University Marching Band. CUMB packed Butler 209 per tradition the night before the Orgo exam and delivered uncomfortable jokes to their audience. Take a break from reading about some boring shit you need to know for your final tomorrow and check out a little bit more entertaining light reading. Also, here are a few tweets from our livetweet tonight to give you a taste of the action prior to the show before you get into the script. It’s like you were there with us.
But remember: this isn’t the last you’ve heard from us on this semester’s Orgo Night…
Our bodies are ready pic.twitter.com/9nC1Hy5Vhn
— Bwog (@bwog) December 12, 2014
As of now the most offensive thing in 209 is body odour #orgonight
— Bwog (@bwog) December 12, 2014
We’re here pic.twitter.com/5T8HAYjZrl
— Bwog (@bwog) December 12, 2014
[Roar]
{MIKHAIL}
Ladies and gentlemen, and organic chemistry students, back despite misguided protests, it’s the most cancelled band in the world, the Columbia University Marching Not Your Turn!
[Fanfare]
{EDITH}
Featuring:
J. ISIS: Death and mutilation
J. NYPD: No trials, but tribulations
J. CIA: Rectal rehydration
[Fanfare]
{MIKHAIL}
Welcomes itself back to spirited, saccharine, strangely antiseptic, sedulous, sententious, sesquipedalian, semicircular, semicentennial, solipsistic, recently renovated, yet still in need of renovation! College Library, where the shelves are longlasting, but sadly not the men, and the women are checked out but long overdue. As well as picket signs going up, protesters on college walk lying down, and the Columbia deans at an all time covering their own ass, the Band now presents its 60th consecutive, 69th semiannual drive to lower the curve in Organic Chemistry while consummating the world’s largest simultaneous Orgo! And so, in the interest of everyone’s enjoyment:
{MIKHAIL}
SEAS students, please turn off your electronic devices.
{EDITH}
GS students, please turn up your hearing aids.
{MIKHAIL}
CC kids, please set your phones to vibrate;
{EDITH}
Barnard students, please set your vibrators to phone. Let’s start the show!
[Who Owns]
{MIKHAIL}
Recently it seems cops are not the kindly and benevolent force white people assumed. Pepper sprayings, beatings, killings—it’s enough to make you throw up your hands in frustration, not that that’ll keep you from getting shot. Look: no one’s saying we don’t need a police force; except maybe CrackDel. Point is, the police are like the Legos of public services. They seem pretty fun when you’re a kid and they’re better in the movies than in real life, but they can be a severe choking hazard. Here in New York state, angry crowds braved NYPD pushback to protest the nonindictment of policeman, murderer, and WWE enthusiast Daniel Pantaleo. In the state of Missouri, angry crowds marched through a hail of rubber bullets to protest against the nonindictment of policeman, murderer, and rosacea sufferer Darren Wilson. And all across America, angry crowds were chased away by their sleepy town’s squad of police tanks.
Thankfully, courageous Darren Wilson supporters with nothing to contribute, braved their subpar internet connections to take a stand by tweeting: #AllLivesMatter, #INeverPersonallyOwnedASlaveSoWhatsTheBigDeal, and #WhyIsEveryoneCallingMeRacist. Here on campus though, students closed their laptops and took to the streets to fight racism. Columbians bravely marched on Amsterdam alongside a counterprotest staged by the proNYPD contingency: the NYPD. Students now passionately chant “I can’t breathe” in places other than the McBain shaft. And in solidarity, advocates for police brutality victims—and a few stray narcoleptics—laid down for justice during the Tree Lighting Ceremony. Luckily the cold College Walk ground wasn’t too uncomfortable, since many of the protesters were carrying around their mattresses too.
Activists also spoke out against institutional racism in the Department of Public Safety, which is exciting for public safety because it makes their police cosplay slightly more accurate. We’ve heard that James McShane, department head and resident 1984 aficionado, has ensured the latest suspect’s photo is blurry enough to blame any black man in Morningside Heights. Really, Public Safety should stop racially profiling, and focus on what they do best: making pleasant conversation with Barnard girls in the signin line.
Across America, it’s become increasingly clear that the phrase “We live in a postracial society” is as big a lie as “We’ll solve it at the next town hall.” But police don’t have any interest in tearing down the system that’s kept them comfortable since the days of aiming hoses at civil rights protesters. And the politicians who could pass real reforms are only concerned for the wellbeing of their overwhelmingly apathetic and blindingly white constituents.
In protest of the glue that chokeholds our society together, the Band now forms a middle finger and plays “Fuck You, Police.”
[Fuck You]
{EDITH}
At a school as diverse as Columbia, there’s bound to be an equally diverse range of opinions. You may love Ferris omelets; your friend may prefer JJ’s omelets, and you both apparently like diarrhea. Some people think Jews control the Internet; others observe that Kim Kardashian is not Jewish. Some people think football coach Pete Mangurian was shitty at his job; other people are Pete Mangurian.
But for the discourse that actually matters, we turn to the Spec opinion pages, where Columbia’s unheard voices compete to be unheard the loudest. Where the “voice of reason” is whichever one aligns with your existing beliefs. And where if we can’t find something real to argue about, god dammit we’ll argue about whether dangerous spaces are truly dangerous, or merely spacious. And that cando attitude is how people who have a asston in common can get together, put aside their similarities, and shit all over each other.
The most offended offenders were, unsurprisingly, engaged in a war of words over an oped about an oped about a letter to the editor about an oped about a comment on an oped that was maybe written by someone from either SJP or The Artist Formerly Known as LionPAC. We’re sure that Palestinian and Israeli families in the midst of war are waiting with bated breath for the result of the “Is DSpar Neutral Enough” debate. We now turn to a more explicitly genocidal landgrab, committed by our university’s raping, pillaging patriarch and founding member of CUCR, Christopher Columbus. Jamie Boothe, CUCR’s director of colonial outreach, took the lead in reminding everyone what the Global Core is for. In his oped defending Columbus Day, Boothe taught us the valuable lesson that slavery wasn’t that bad, since it showed white people that it was wrong to own slaves—a fact black people realized pretty much immediately. At the very least, slaves should get college credit and a letter of recommendation, like they do today.
Without decent opeds, our only venue for written discourse is rehashing old Tumblr jokes on Yik Yak. Maybe Columbia students just don’t know how to communicate anymore without making themselves sound like selfrighteous, egotistical assholes. Maybe that’s what makes us such good Ivy League students. But as long as we’re being egotistical assholes, can we please stop pretending that we’re interested in an “open dialogue?” Here’s an opinion: 95% of people who call for “open dialogues” on this campus are 100% full of shit. It hurts to have your opinion attacked and it feels awesome to just know you’re right, which is why the Lewinsky is DEFINITELY the best HamDel sandwich, and why going to Orogo Night is DEFINITELY problematic, and why the Spec opinion page is DEFINITELY an ideological trainwreck.
In honor of shattered discourse, the band now forms an echo chamber and plays “Toxic.”
[Toxic]
{MIKHAIL}
As fucked as the dialogue may be at Spec, it’s nothing compared to the dialogue, content, stability, appearance, fonts, comments, competence, and coherence at another campus outlet. Just to explain for the freshmen in the audience, we used to have a website called Bwog. And every year people said, “This couldn’t possibly get any worse.” But this semester, every stupid decision and subsequent watery retraction constituted a fullon textual assault.
Its readers cringed as the photo covering SJP’s 9/11 demonstration went up, then down, then up again, and ended up blurry, like a night at Bill Cosby’s. Things only got messier with Bwog’s coverage of the Rules of Protest town hall, which had a better script than any Varsity Show. It was hardhitting at first, but later so apologetic that it will be allowed back in the NFL. Bwog, you’ve really lost your balls…err, nongender binary genitalia of choice, because in the wake of all of this journalistic skullfuckery, you issued yet another apology and lost members like a leper at an orgy.
Last night, some impassioned individuals aired their grievances against Orgo Night jokes they haven’t heard, aren’t hearing now, and won’t bother to look up later. But we can’t entirely blame them—at this school, everyone’s become accustomed to confidently bullshitting without doing the reading. It’s important we acknowledge the calls to cancel Orgo Night are coming from a very small minority of speechsuppressing, a.k.a. silencing hypocrites who stand for nothing but the buzzwords they use to construct every sentence. But just in case Orgo Night is cancelled sometime in the next 35 minutes, we’ve decided to issue an apology to every person who’s offended by anything in this year’s script, inspired by Bwog’s own epic apology to its readers.
Dear members of the Columbia community:
It has recently come to our attention that Orgo Night frequently targets one of the most oppressed groups on campus. We’d like to take a moment to formally apologize to the football team for any lasting harm we may have caused. For 69 semiannual Orgo Nights we’ve tried to provide a safe and open space for dick jokes. But to be honest with you, we don’t know what the hell we’re doing anymore. Do you have any ideas? Since Bwog’s forum was as wellattended as the College Republicans’ Darren Wilson appreciation dinner, we thought it would be best to hold our forum now when none of you can leave. Orgo Night has always adhered to our most sacred principles, and we value your input in figuring out what those principles are. Please help, if you think that your helping would be a good idea. Also, consider running for a leadership position in the band; we’re running out of people who haven’t resigned already (or been kicked out for allegedly raping each other).
In order to placate everyone, the band now gives up trying and forms nothing, says nothing, and does nothing.
[Sound of Silence]
{EDITH}
This NSOP, campus activists woke up the students of Barnumbia—or alternatively, The Colonialist, TransMisogynistic, Overpriced Rape Factory —to the evil realities of this institution. The Disorientation Guide was a logical collaboration between groups like No Red Tape, Students for Justice in Palestine, International Socialist Organization, and the Barnard Outdoor Adventure Team. In their “guide” they invoked liberal hero George W. Bush by saying “you’re either with us, or against us,” because, of course, to think rape is wrong you also have to be a Socialist Palestinian hiker.
Now, we in the Band also don’t want our tuition dollars to be funding private prisons and oil companies—we’d rather invest in one way plane tickets for members of Beta to the African savannah, so they can experience the true “circle of life” in the jaws of Mufasa. But the writers of the disorientation guide took it a step too far. They indoctrinated fetal freshmen, who raised their fists in solidarity with all of the other freshmen who wanted free lobster at NSOP. They pandered to the millennials by writing in the same style as an A I M away message. But most offensively, they highlighted the diss in disorientation. Don’t say the cword—you know, crazy—or the word “lame,” because that’s ableist, and ableist language is crippling to open dialogue. And don’t say “guys,” because that’s how Australians say “gays.”
Activist groups are now controlling our language as much as Ariana Grande’s ponytail controls her mind. Say goodbye to the phrase, “the football team really blew it,” for fear of offending Barnard girls everywhere. Don’t call someone a “nerd” unless they’re actually in SEAS, and don’t say “wench,” because it’s a culturally outdated phrase and you should just be saying “bitch” instead. For that matter, don’t speak English at all, for it’s the language of the Brutal British empire, and is therefore insulting to Indians. But don’t say “Indians,” because it could be interpreted as derogatory against Native Americans, but don’t use the term “Native Americans,” because it’s offensive to jingoistic white people.
The disorientation guide was nice enough to inform us that by attending school here, we might as well be personally chopping down an oldgrowth redwood onto a bus full of gay Palestinian orphans. But hey, don’t activists buy into the heroic narrative of Columbia—no, sorry, “Barnumbia”—as well? There’s something about this school that makes anyone who goes here think of themselves as the ruler of their own shitty little kingdom. You can be a white male chauvinist asshole, or an asshole who won’t shut up about the spirit of ’68, but in the end, you’re still an asshole.
In honor of the glory days, the band now forms a group of sweaty students storming Butler and plays “Time Warp.”
[Time Warp]
{MIKHAIL}
Despite the diligent efforts of our administrators, our sterling #4 reputation is now under attack. Though they’ve made their best attempts to shield our eyes from the horror, Columbia deans couldn’t keep campus rape under covers. The inadequacies of the administration’s handling of rape on campus is illustrated by SVR’s greenyellowred traffic light poster. You know, the one that helpfully reminds us that green means go, yellow means bust a nut within four seconds or you have to stop, and red means just wait it out—because every light turns green eventually. Thanks SVR.
Because of the administration’s impotence, Columbia was a twinXL hotbed of protests this past semester. Leading the charge is No Red Tape, whose visible and radical activism has frustrated the administration and tainted the image of rapists everywhere. No Red Tape has forced us to confront ugly truths; that rapes are dismissed as often as Pete Mangurian dismissed concussions, that complaints are as poorly handled as a Lion’s field goal attempt, and that the problem of sexual violence is as cultural and systemic as the football team losing. No Red Tape are like that guy who sits in the front of your 8:40 lecture; they make the right points and are one of the few actively making them; which is annoying, because fucking up the curve for anyone who thought just sitting on your ass and not raping people was enough.
Still, No Red Tape’s prescriptions for fixing this campus rape situation range from the obvious—”Don’t Rape People!”—to the unhelpfully vague—”Don’t Rape Culture!”—to the headscratchingly unrelated—”Free Free Palestine,” but at least somebody’s looking for solutions. We in the band don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we can identify some serious fucking problems that are worsening Columbia’s fucking problem. One thing everyone agrees on, other than that Bernheim and Schwartz’ shitty pilsner is overpriced, is that the judicial process needs to be better. Sure, contrary to what No Red Tape believes, PrezBo doesn’t personally invite all of Columbia’s rapists over for icecream and high fives. However, the way administrative incentives are structured is more twisted than the mind of Charles Manson’s fiancée. At Columbia, the very people who determine rape statistics by ruling on assault cases are the ones in charge of upholding the rapeutation of the university. If UNI cafe was allowed to be its own health inspector, they’d be getting A grades easier than at Harvard. So why the hell shouldn’t rape statistics be judged by a third party? Well, Columbia would say that the RA should have already shut down the first two parties.
In honor of creating a safe space for donors, the Band now forms the delusions of the administration and plays “Sweet Dreams.”
[Sweet Dreams]
{EDITH}
Ah, the Columbia circle of life. As the seasons change, tree lights go up, leaves fall down, and the green lawns are blanketed in white…tarps. But one thing never changes: the administration. Though the deans may come and go, their idea of change is switching the name in the thoughtlessly copy/pasted student death letter. It seems as though administrative reforms are destined to be stuck in purgatory forever. But it’s not always because they inherently take a long time; it’s because the administration knows it can just wait your ass out.
No Red Tape is a 30yearold group that tends to bubble up every four years when new students don’t realize how unresponsive the administration has been. At Barnard, President Spar has given transgender admission reform a timeline of…again, four years. You see, by then, a whole generation of student activists has moved on from smoking weed after comp lit to smoking weed after their fulltime internships. The second you cross that commencement stage and are promptly evicted from your dorm, every petition, editorial, and maintenance request you’ve ever written becomes Low Library toilet paper.
We in the band agree that trans women are just as worthy of an allwomen’s education as cisgender women. All women should have the opportunity to uncomfortably sign out their onenightstand, and be forced to see that stranger’s face in the harsh light of day. There’s no reason the administration needs four years to make a decision: the objection to admitting trans women boils down to a childish obsession with genitals. At the end of the day, all Barnard girls have dicks, most just keep them in their desks.
One person happy with recent changes is PrezBo, who saw the size of his package increase by almost 40 percent this year! Yes, President Bollinger will make $700,000 more annually, or approximately a thousand dollars for every second he spends on campus. Which makes his infamous $471 mattress removal fee to Student Worker Solidarity a lot more understandable…to PrezBo, $471 is chump change, pennies, halal money. To be fair to Columbia administrators, it’s not like they can pull that money out of an $8 billion endowment. That money is for the stuff that really matters, like paying off US News & World Report, gentrifying Manhattanville, and funding the football program.
In honor of institutional inertia, the band now forms an exploratory committee and plays “Snappy.”
[Happy]
{MIKHAIL}
Well, that’s all for us tonight, folks. But before we go, we’d like to leave you with a few study hints for the big Orgo exam tomorrow:
{EDITH}
Molecules with antiaromatic rings are unstable. relationships with antiromantics are unstable and and you’ll never get a ring.
{MIKHAIL}
An ionic bond consists of a metal and a nonmetal. A covalent bond consists of two nonmetals. A fraternal bond consists of people throwing alcohol down your throat and beating the shit out of you.
{EDITH}
Coordination complexes of 5 generally take a trigonal bipyramidal shape. Sexual coordinations of 5 generally take at least three bisexuals.
{MIKHAIL}
And finally, in chemistry, elements that are not part of the solution are part of the precipitate, whereas, at Columbia, students who are not part of the solution are part of the Band!
{EDITH}
Thanks and good night folks! Try not to break any bookcases on your way out!
[Raw]
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67 Comments
@Anonymous I disagree.
@huh How is Columbia a racist institution?
@I'll try barring any specific allegations, I think it goes:
1) Due to history, pretty much every US institution is racist
2) Columbia is a US institution
3) Ergo, Columbia is a racist institution
(Or something. I think I might have been culturally imperialist using Latin there. Or maybe appropriating since I’m not actually Roman? Anyway, sorry!)
@ale Columbia is a racist institution in that it uses the category of race to determine who gets into the university and for what, in order to maintain white (“Western”) supremacy both at the university level and in the larger world with which Columbia alumni, as agents for corporations, State Dept officials or CIA interrogators will interact.
Columbia as an institution over the past hundred years or longer, would not have complied to the presence of people of color in its halls, nor grant financial aid to students from non-privileged backgrounds, nor admit women, or provide anyone who is not a white, male, cisgender, Occidentalist chauvinist prick (BOLLINGER, prime type) an education were it not for larger social movements. Check admissions policies, that set standards of acceptance by white prep school extracurriculars crew-and-ballet 2100 SAT bullshit, it’s not because they are the best they are (they tend to either fall ill or become sadists), but rather because they are the privileged ones, the ones who can afford it.
You’re here because either they thought you’d make a good tool (but you’re not a tool, you’re a human being and you can do whatever the fuck you want), or because struggles over many years rightfully opened the doors of this university, for you to enjoy studying and seeking the truth, learning about history and how the world works, in order to make it a better place.
@Anonymous Meanwhile, at Princeton:
https://www.facebook.com/princetontigerlilies/posts/10152609581302017
@Alum No more jokes about serious topics! They are not funny! That is why The Producers, Dr. Strangelove, M*A*SH, Louis CK’s 9/11 joke and millions of other comic treatments of horrendous situations have failed so miserably. Controversial yes, but they keep being made and will continue to be made. Humor is not only a way to deal/cope with issues but also a way to unveil the bizarre nature of said events. The reason many of these jokes are funny is because it is absurd that events such as these have occurred in the first place.
Who are any of you to decide what can and cannot be joked about? If you don’t find it funny, fine. Don’t go. But don’t speak for everyone else – no one has given you their permission to do that.
Issues regarding race, rape, etc are important. Don’t belittle them by claiming that CUMB is part of the problem. At no point did CUMB say “go ahead and rape people its ok” or “we support racial oppression.” They were however making a point of criticizing the institutions that do seem to say that rape and racial oppression are not that bad – through humor.
@anon ^That’s it, right there. To you guys, racism still comes in the form of cartoonish bigotry, like “We support racial oppression” or “Let’s go rape people.” It’s about making excuses and justifying yourself instead of listening to people and giving them the benefit of the doubt, that their feelings and experiences are valid.
@Anonymous Can somebody please remove this stupid comment?
Meaning this one, the one you’re reading right now. Awful!
@Anonymous Wasn’t there, so I can’t really judge the delivery. (Then again, I will bet cash money that most of the people protesting weren’t, either.)
But taking a quick scan of the script, they mocked ‘deans covering their ass’, slammed perpetrators of police brutality at least ten times, pointed “we live in a postracial society” out as a bullshit thing to say.
On the NRT front, they said that NRT was right and taunted people for thinking “just sitting on your ass and not raping people was enough”. They went after the admins’ general unresponsiveness, and compared the administration’s attempts to investigate rape claims while keeping a shiny rep for CC as like a restaurant being able to do its own health inspection.
They also went after PrezBo for his pay increase (why NOT tap the endowment, really?), and Bwog. For which we may apparently expect to see vengeance or something.
There were a few jokes in bad taste- but none of them were aimed at subaltern parties. Nobody was laughing at protestors for their cause- in fact, they pointed out that the only pro-NYPD faction on campus during the recent protests were the NYPD themselves.
Since someone brought up Jon Stewart, so far as I can tell, every ‘punch’ was ‘punching up’ (at someone with power), not down (toward people who don’t).
Maybe the thing is that the people protesting aren’t demanding “Political Correctness” (ugh, that horrible overused meaningless filler-phrase) so much as reverence. While their goals and motives are being supported, they simply don’t want it to ‘not sound right’.
Because this is the Cause of Justice, and there’s no time for comedy in the Cause of Justice. I personally think the goals of most of the groups protesting on campus are laudible. This, however, doesn’t mean that everyone in them is beyond all reproach or teasing. So long as the real flamethrower stuff is being used on people who are legitimately doing wrong, that is. Which it seems to be.
Like tone-policing, except tone-policing usually isn’t against someone who agrees with you.
Anyway, I’m not sure why we “haven’t heard the last of this” on the Bwog front. It’s a one-night thing, does it merit a blood feud?
@anon I think they generally do punch up. I just don’t get how they think they can 100% absolve themselves of perpetuating any harm by using a liberal platform to hit targets like admins and racism while claiming immunity to criticism by any of their peers. They say it’s serious satire and then go, “Ugh it’s just about fun/not about you/it’s supposed to be offensive!” when their peers ask them to reconsider making light of certain topics. They think that because they largely swing in the liberal spectrum and are on-point for most topics that this gives them leverage to be problematic and hurtful in other aspects. Which, to me, is a shitty and disingenuous kind of liberalism/comedy. You can’t in the same breath decry Darren Wilson supporters and police brutality and the same students who are most affected by these issues by mocking their “PC hypersensitivity,” which for lots of people–not even just activists–isn’t a quibble over political correctness so much as resistance to small manifestations of the large-scale bigotry they face every day.
I generally enjoy Orgo Night and really think that it does have the potential to be an inclusive, enjoyable event for everyone. I just wish its members, who ironically enjoy the privilege of one of the safest, tightly-knit communities at Columbia, would think hard and critically about extending that feeling of safety and inclusivity to everyone else. This should have been a paramount concern in a month that has been especially traumatizing and awful for marginalized identities on campus. And no, don’t tell me it can’t be done. No one’s ever protested the Varsity Show and VS can be hella funny.
@CC'12 I’ll just recall this line from the Varsity Show senior year: “Columbia is all about students with different viewpoints coming together to be offended.”
@Anonymous Dude you’re arguing with a troll right now. Check the track button….
@Angry BC17 I can’t believe people were not offended by Orgo Night. The Marching Band made light of very serious issues that survivors of rape/sexual assault and People of Color have to deal with EVERY DAY. To minimize the suffering and oppression of entire groups on campus is despicable and should be dealt with by the administration.
@Someone who was actually there You are acting like this was a mandatory event for students or something. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to! Nobody is forcing you to. For some students, this is a great way to relieve stress during finals season and get a laugh. This is exactly what people are referring to when they say “the war on fun”!
@Angry BC17 Basically you are saying that some people getting a laugh is more important than the subjugation of entire minorities and oppressed peoples. I’m not trying to ban laughter, all I’m saying is have some common human decency and respect the feelings of others during a tumultuous time for survivors and PoC especially. You have no consideration for other when you think that your laughter—something you can get from literally thousands of online videos for example instead—is more important than people not feeling discriminated against. Think about others for once in your life. f
@Someone who was actually there The problem with your argument is that you are acting as if you stand for all PoC, when in actuality plenty of them were there, including the bandleader. By pretending to be a mouthpiece for all PoC, you are effectively taking away the voice of the PoC who disagree with you and doing the same thing you accuse others of doing. You’re the worst kind of hypocrite!!
@Angry BC17 I never claimed to speak for all PoC. Even if SOME PoC feel uncomfortable, then you should stop Orgo Night. Our school traditions should unite people, not set them apart, and even if SOME PoC feel that it disenfranchises them from the Columbia community at large, don’t you think it’s worth the small sacrifice on your part of giving up just this one small study break? Stop acting like comedy is harmless when clearly it has brought to the fore serious topics that are not being taken lightly.
@LAWLZ!! TRACKED!!!
@Anonymous Kind of confused on how you have time to argue with yourself right now. Do you know what finals are??
@Anonymous Yeah what a tool.
@Confused junior It wasn’t mandatory, but there’s no way to deny that the posters for this event were pervasive and unavoidable. Those alone were extremely offensive. And the fact that this event was a good ‘ol stress reliever/source of fun for some students is very indicative of privilege that these students possess in not having to engage with these issues critically. Sorry but some of us literally LIVE these issues that are being made light of. Fuck a war on fun. What about the war on us?
@You probably hate Jon Stewart as well CUMB was not making light of anything.Public demonstrations and outcries aren’t the only ways to bring attention to these issues. Satire, in some ways, is a lot more effective as it’s more accessible to the majority of people (especially to people who feel awkward about participating in or vocalizing opinions on such topics that they might feel they have no authority to discuss), and Orgo Night inevitably instigates dialogue in its aftermath.
@Confused junior I really don’t see what’s so hard to understand about the fact Orgo Night cannot be seen as an alternative activist measure to “public demonstrations and outcries,” if the very people it is apparently trying to help DO NOT feel helped.
@Anonymous Given that the band historically has played in front of several residence halls, it kind of is “mandatory” for some students. How are we supposed to avoid it when they play right outside our windows?
@Genuinely Curious I am completely open to saying that I am ignorant, but can someone who found the script to be offensive, please point out specific citations that they thought were offensive and explain why? I quite honestly just found it funny as satire and didn’t think it was offensive.
@K 1. using the word “slave” objectively as if it a) encapsulates the identities of enslaved people and b) doesn’t trigger emotions for people of color who continue to be/feel suffocated by the SAME institutions the US was founded on—genocide and slavery.
2) insinuating that transgender women have “dicks” puts the complex identities of transgender people into the overbearing and fetishized shadow of genitalia.
@CC '15 I have a real question about 1)
I thought this was actually a keen commentary on how black people are treated in today’s “post-racial” society. I mean, isn’t that essentially what you just said, that some people of color actually do feel suffocated and enslaved by U.S. institutions?
I really do not understand why this is offensive as it is essentially what some POC say.
@Anonymous i thought it was a poorly written/badly connected joke about unpaid internships — work like “””a slave””” and all you get is college credit and a letter of rec
@Confused junior @angrysenior I’m supposed to be concerned about ensuring that you get to have your stress-free/anxiety-free time, when the very reason that students felt that this protest was necessary is because we literally experience stress, anxiety, and triggers on a daily basis at this racist institution that sanctions racist events (orgo night)? Ok.
@Very confused If you’re protesting the band mentioning subjects that can be triggering in an event that everyone can easily avoid, then why do you surprise people, including survivors, PoCs, and a whole host of people who could be triggered and TRY TO MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE???
You’re triggering far more people than CUMB that way!!!
@Confused junior This is essentially the equivalent of you saying that No Red Tape shouldn’t stage protests against sexual assault because they will trigger people with their protests… so then what do you want us to do?…
@Anonymous nothing
@Confused junior Oh well! :) #CantStopWontStop
@Very confused Keep protesting. You do great work. But don’t criticize CUMB for triggering when you do the same thing.
If you’re going to say CUMB is bad, then you’re going to need to prove that they do more than simply touch on bad subjects. You’d need to prove that they insult the marginalized rather than simply commenting on how awful their situation is or parodying the people that oppress them. That I don’t think any of you have, so you should really reconsider why CUMB is the enemy and not an ally.
Just because they’ll make fun of being too PC as well as the awful moves of the administration does not mean they’re out to get you. Joking about the AIM-like style of a disorientation guide page is not furthering oppression.
@Confused junior Confused by what you mean when you say proof. How is the simple fact of marginalized students feeling insulted not PROOF that CUMB “insult the marginalized?” I still fail to understand how our protest being triggering is grounds for it to not happen. Yes I understand that the entire spectacle of it could have been triggering, and that yes perhaps some people around did not want to be reminded of police brutality and racism in that moment, but we said nothing to offend or hurt anyone. We were literally just voicing the pain that we feel. Again, I bring up No Red Tape. Should their speak-outs and recounting of their stories not be happen because it will be triggering to survivors around the protest? Protests can be triggering in nature, but this dos not mean that they shouldn’t happen.
@Confused junior Also love that the joke about the “AIM-like style of a disorientation guide page” is the only one that you reference.
@Very Confused @confused junior, you’re really not even trying to have a dialogue are you? If you read the first sentence you would have realized that I was not calling for a stop to protests. Keep protesting just don’t be a blatant hypocrite and criticize CUMB too.
The fact that students like you are offended is not enough if you just decide that you’ll be infuriated before anyone even says a joke and, given by how diligently you read my one paragraph comment, I highly doubt you even read this script above us. I read it and stand by the whole thing. If you’re going to claim its one of the worst things in existence, you should probably at least find a specific joke to blow out of proportion.
@Confused junior I did not say that YOU’RE saying our protests shouldn’t happen. I’m addressing the fact that orgo night shouldn’t happen, and making the point that you cannot equate our protest with anything that CUMB does or says at orgo night. Thus, it is important for me to reiterate why our protests are necessary so that you can see the clear distinction between the two. Also, it’s not like people were speaking out about CUMB before having any prior knowledge of the nonsense that CUMB preaches. We’re talking about years and years of the same shit happening. The same kinds of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc jokes. Not to mention the fact that they released posters prior to the event that easily set the tone for how the script would turn out. I think that’s enough to make an informed decision to protest.
@Didn't Go To Either But Still... Then why don’t you go protest Orgo Night if you have such a huge problem with it? Oh because of “the police outside of Butler”. So you’re crashing somewhere else where there aren’t police.
I, too, am feeling less and less sympathetic toward this movement because of your constant protesting. I just wanted to watch the trees light up but no, you had to ruin that moment by laying down and enjoying the trees from the ground. Now you’re protesting a lovely stress-free Barnard tradition that brings together the community.
Yea, sure “Black Lives Matter” but so do the lives of the trees you killed by wasting paper printing stuff out that still gets ignored like the rest of the flyers on campus.
@4 AM is not a logical hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Px7ZJRDY4
@Anonymous Maybe NRT shouldn’t be staging huge protests in the middle of campus? I’ve been to their protests and they were far more distasteful and triggering than Orgo Night.
@Anonymous You sound like a cosmofag. Are you a cosmofag?
@Anonymous What was that line that Mikhail said was a double entendre and that took everyone a while to get?
@I have no fucking problem “We in the band don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we can identify some serious fucking problems that are worsening Columbia’s fucking problem.”
This line made my entire night (morning).
@h they seem like they want to criticize the same things as student activists, but only feel cool doing it if they also piss all over the student activists. Comes off as smug and nasty.
@Angry Senior Can we talk about how Midnight Breakfast was protested but not Orgo Night?
Literally everyone at Midnight Breakfast already agrees that all lives matter, why did you have to stop and change the night of the ONE night per semester meant to be stress and TRIGGER free?
I get that you want more attention but WHAT ARE YOUR DEMANDS? It’s totally unclear and has turned a previously sympathetic person me into a confused and slightly annoyed person.
I know this will get downvoted, but at least read it all the way through and admit that there is some merit.
And, no, I’m not uncomfortable. I fucking annoyed.
@Confused junior Orgo night was protested. The second part of our action was to ensure that the marching band would not come onto the Barnard Quad. Protesting in Butler during orgo night would not have been smart, as Columbia seemed to be prepared for something to happen there (ex. Police everywhere beforehand). Why would we expose ourselves to that? Ultimately, the band was not allowed into the quad thanks to Dean Hinkson hearing us out. And if we had not gone to midnight breakfast first, this would not have happened.
@what? Here’s what I don’t get. Why do you get to make that decision for the rest of us? I respect your opinion, but why is it that you and your opinion get to decide CUMB can’t come onto our side of the street?
@Confused junior Perhaps because we were out there? If you had an issue with “us and our opinions” dictating whether or not CUMB could come into the quad, you could have been out there staging a counter-action. Didn’t see you though. Neither did Hinkson.
@Angry Senior And how were we even supposed to know that anything was happening? To be honest, these were 2 hours that I had allotted as stress-free, anxiety-free time for me to blow off steam, and your demonstration was actually very triggering.
And now we are supposed to organize a counter-protest in order to have the right to celebrate a bi-annual tradition? Uh what? How is the band playing golden oldies and dancing around the quad a bad thing?
I’ve danced in the quad and slept through orgo night before. Get over yourselves.
@what? If I had known we were supposed to meet to make that decision maybe I would have come out. You have valid points but you turn so many people off with your activism that it’s soooo hard to support what you’re doing. I’m not an expert, but there has to be a better way of convincing people to be better people.
@Anonymous You know, I would enjoy CUMB and Orgo Night and would appreciate them in the quad if they were tasteful in their humor. I am certain that they will be invited back to Barnard when they show that they aren’t racist, sexist, homophobic, and other “isms.”
@Angry Senior Literally fuck off. Please copy past the quotes from the above script that are other “isms” and the jokes aren’t even made in the quad. Literally what are you trying to prove?
@Anonymous Have you literally even seen the band play on the quad? All they play is music. No jokes, offensive or otherwise (unless you count Hava Nagila, but I’ve never known any Jewish people to be offended by that [myself included]). It’s fun. We dance. Blow off steam. Fuck you for attacking your fellow students for that.
You’re really turning off the rest of us even though we probably AGREE about police brutality and sexual assault and trans people at Barnard and everything else that’s been discussed of late.
@honestly wow just so we get the language right… you’re throwing a hissy-fit over a fucking silent sit-in
@Anonymous A fb friend on mine posted a video of women eating at Midnight Breakfast with a caption deriding those choosing business as usual.
Attacking your friends for eating waffles at midnight before finals instead of ineffectively protesting some large amalgamation of issues? Yeah, that’s upsetting to me and worth getting mad over.
@Anonymous This is a good point.
They have excellent reasons to protest, but the targets protestors have chosen are basically chosen because they’re easy. And there’s nothing to be gained from it as a result.
People were mad about the die-in at the lighting. I’m not, actually- it was the same night that marchers shut down all the tunnels. It was soon after Eric Garner died. Things are still raw now, but it basically “just happened” at the time.
But now it seems that pretty much every public event for students at Columbia is going to be protested or shut down, from now on, indefinately. Including midnight waffles.
And why? It can’t be to “raise awareness” among non-PoC students- they mostly heard about the Garner incident at the same time, had the same police helicopters overhead, many went to the same protests. And it assumes no students of color are at the events too, which is provably untrue.
It can’t be to get students to stop doing something, since those few stated demands the protestors actually have are aimed at the City Hall, the NYPD (over which students have no control) or the administration (who don’t respond to student pressure in general). And there are few actual demands- it’s all ‘microaggressions’ and ‘be more considerate’ rather than “the university should divest from the for-profit prison system” or something concrete.
So with no defined goal, no more awareness to be gained (since most of the protests so far have been silent, there are no speakers to listen to), and a target population that is genetally very liberal-leaning and agrees with you in the first place… what’s the point?
The only reply that I’ve seen that even skims this is the sarcastic “oh, I am so sorry that our protest over (cause) interrupted your little (tree lighting/ musical comedy show/wafflefest/commencement/whatever)”. Except now it’s happened a few times and, lo and behold, the problem still exists. Because the protests went after people who couldn’t affect the issue.
And, given the rhetoric of the thing, any course-correction or tactic change will be seen as “selling out” or being insufficiently zealous- the setup as it stands neither produces results nor rewards the people involved for saying so. If every single event has “problematic overtones” (and if no actual offended parties speak up, hypothetical ones will do), then not protesting them is unthinkable.
So we get more of them, as well as judgemental Spec op eds about “how can you sit there eating waffles as the world cries?” or whatever, basically implicating whoever’s at that event for no other reason than happening to be there when the protestors showed up.
Plus, it can’t be about opening dialogue, since silent judgement and (as above) sniping from the safety of Facebook and calling it a day isn’t dialogue. Actually engaging people and not acting as if anything they have to say is a ruse, a cover, or just not worth listening to is a dialogue.
Finally, events may be triggering (if you take the clinical term and tumblr it until it applies to everybody), but I would hate to see a sort of collective agoraphobia kick in- we can’t go out, there might be A Problem with it, some (undefined) other person may take issue, etc. .
@Anonymous “Though the deans may come and go, their idea of change is switching the name in the thoughtlessly copy/pasted student death letter.” I think we can all agree that this was inappropriate.
Other than that, wonderful study break!
And in regards to the Spec oped piece, as a PoC I did not feel that my “participation [was] violence and laughter complacency.”
@Anonymous How was this joke inappropriate? It broached a difficult subject but its purpose was obviously to criticize Columbia’s formulaic response to these tragedies.
You can’t even honestly say that it “made light” of the issue, a common criticism of jokes.
@Heisenberg That was well intentioned but seemed to be in poor taste the way it was delivered. However, they were trying to make a point so I give them some slack and it was the only borderline offensive joke of the whole skit.
Also, it is very funny that the op-ed complained that “their jokes are triggering for marginalized identities on campus” yet orgo night goes above and beyond to make the same points liberal activists make in a satirical fashion. But I guess left wing activists just want any excuse to complain and protest.
@Yeah Meanwhile, while they complained that Orgo is “triggering for marginalized identities on campus”, they yelled that black people are dying in the middle of an event that wasn’t even expecting them, Midnight Breakfast. Feel like that might of triggered some people, especially since they couldn’t just choose not to go like with Orgo.
@um I don’t think you know how this works.
@Anonymous I agree but I feel so torn about how much slack to give them after they handled the last suicide in a really similar way: “According to Columbia, we shouldn’t be asking why students feel so isolated and depressed, we should be installing window stops to make suicide slightly less convenient.” Good point but ahhh I don’t know
@Anonamoose But what else *did* the administration do?
@Anonymous Fair’s fair, they laid snacks out in their counselor-free counselng zone”he said, bitterly…”)