Posts published in “Opinions”

Racial tensions..

. on our campus. Is your guard up? Blood moving? Good, now hear me out girlfriend, before you go and burn my newspaper down!

As a commentator, I wanted to share with you some advice I've learned to accept over the past couple years. This column actually refers to all campus tensions, including racial ones at Mills.

The blues of my body
shaped like remnants of a continent
whirling, scattered, swallowed emotion
dancing shadows in the ocean

The blues of my body
have a midnight pigmentation
bear the color of burning cotton
the meaning of one word never forgotten

T

I don't know how I ended up here.

Oh sure, I filled out the application, wrote an essay, got signatures, bought my plane ticket online and obsessed about what to bring for over a month, but as I arrive in Brussels, Belgium that is all a blur. Suddenly I am here and there is snow on the ground.

There is something heartbreakingly hopeful about college. You can still do anything. We have yet to enter the world. Still our entire charge is to explore and think about the world-at-large. We are allowed the prospect of hope, of inspiration, of a deep belief that we can make a difference and be great; we still have yet to encounter our better selves.

At the Berkeley shuttle stop last weekend, I overheard furtive comments from two undergraduate students about men being the "antithesis" to Mills. My first reaction was to call them out, but figured they would either deny or downplay saying anything, so I let it go.

The Campanil takes issue with an administrative proposal to cut funds for teaching assistants in the mathematics and computer science departments at Mills College. Under the plan, TAs in both departments would lose all their funding. The math department especially relies on students to grade homework and teach workshops, and math students have already taken a pay cut.