I challenge all those who campaigned for ASUC office to one question: What do they mean by “community?”
Community is a word that gets thrown around very often here at Cal, especially during campaign season. Candidates will claim support and endorsement from the ____ community, which sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is.
When “community” is used in that respect, how far does it go? Is it an inclusive or exclusive term? I know some “communities” will hold open forums to select senate candidates to represent them. These forums are publicized in different ways, such as through announcements in student organizations or social-media marketing to spread the word. Even then, putting a candidate up to a vote within the “community” places an unusual pressure on that candidate, as well as that on-campus demographic. If you don’t support a candidate who claims to run on behalf of your community, or who even got your “community endorsement,” are you outside the community?
Even if it is well-intentioned, the whole “community” rhetoric, I feel, is ultimately destructive. No one community feels unanimously about any issue, and no one should have the arrogance to claim to represent his or her community adequately. By reducing your community down to one candidate and one voice, you are stripping yourself and your identity to one unified ideology.
Candidates should acknowledge that their opinions and their vote is representative of themselves alone. There is no shame in recognizing that, and better to do that now than after they are elected and are no longer bound to their “communities.” There is a difference between taking your experiences as a member of your communities into account, when writing a bill or voting on legislation, and doing so with the false support of your entire community. To do so is to ultimately disrespect and oversimplify your community and not represent it.
— Steven Johnson,
UC Berkeley senior
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