Maybe it’s because it’s an election year that I’m having problems getting anyone to talk about anything separated from politics. Don’t misunderestimate me, I am voting, although I’m not happy about it. When it comes to voting, though, I’m among the minority. I vote on issues, not party lines.
One of the issues I think should be seriously considered by students is social justice. The Social Justice Club, along with the Ignatian Residential College and Campus Ministry (the Trinity of Jesuitness at Fairfield), hosted an event last Wednesday that was thought-provoking, but became a microcosm of our current, and in my opinion, hopelessly partisan, political milieu.
The Social Justice Club showed a documentary titled Sweat, which depicts the true story of Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu’s trip to Indonesia where they lived and worked in a Nike sweatshop to determine whether a worker’s wage is a viable living wage. They found that it absolutly was not. After the video, business professor Winston Tellis expanded on the subject.
I was happy to note that all 75 seats were filled during the viedeo’s presentation. while about 20 people milled around in the back. I was not happy, though, when the politicians stepped up.
A College Democrat who spoke at the tail end of the program urged people to register to vote and mentioned Diane Farrell, the Democratic Candidate for Congress. The speaker also mentioned that the College Republicans had been invited to the event and chose not to speak at it. About the same number of people from both clubs attended the event and from where I was standing, I could feel the rage when that statement was made.
What followed was worthy of a Jerry Springer show: A student jumped up to the podium, grabbed the microphone, and started railing against the Democrats. He shouted about America’s safety and how the only way to protect ourselves from terrorists was to vote for Bush. He continued shouting even after the sound system was turned off. A few College Democrats shouted back and forth with him until he got off the stage. In all fairness to the College Republicans, the student who started shouting, although loosely affiliated with the Republicans, was not “put up” to doing what he did.
I spoke with senior members of the Republicans after the incident and they agreed that the disruption was uncalled for. I also spoke with the Democrats after the event, and to their credit they were open to discussion on a wide range of topics, including my criticisms of politics. But my problem is never with the people who are the politicians; it’s with how issues are lost when politicians butt heads.
It’s a fallacy to believe that one party has the market for social justice issues. Keady and Kretzu went to live and work in Indonesia in the summer of 2000 during the Clinton administration. When it comes to an international moneymaker like Nike, politics don’t really touch them.
That’s why social justice issues shouldn’t be just one more voting issue. Regardless of how you vote in this election, things probably won’t be changed in the Nike sweatshops. Social justice should be considered apart from politics.
A simple vote shouldn’t make us feel that we’ve done our duty. If our candidate doesn’t win we shouldn’t just let it be. These issues should be a way of life, especially coming from a Jesuit university.
I don’t have a Republican or Democrat bias; I generally dislike both parties equally. That’s my bias, I suppose. I don’t suffer from any flip-flopping mentality on that point.
Maybe I’m making too much of the politics at the event. When the politicians were shouting at each other the rest of the audience left.
Just as in our actual political arena, the politicians fight amongst themselves and the rest of us ignore them.
In this case, I don’t think the issue that the Social Justice Club wanted us to focus on was lost in politics. What the video and Professor Tellis said resonated. It was stronger than the political fallout, in fact. I guess that means there’s hope for issue voters like me.
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