Cal Berkeley Democrats

facebook.edu: Campaigning for Higher Education

When I came to Cal, I purged my closet of all things red, of course in solidarity with thousands of Cal students before me turning up their noses at the Stanford Stink.  But I’m sure over the last year people reading this have rallied with me in that hated color, forgetting the pettiness of rivalship, and repping a different sort of solidarity.  Over the last year, many of us have yelled, marched, and advocated for a cause few of us can ignore.  On March 22, my red shirt again blended in with the crowd, as 5,000 of us participated in the annual Sacramento rally for higher education: the March in March.

The third speaker, Assm. Martin Block (D-San Diego), assured the crowd, “We hear your voices in that building.”  Now, as the Chair of the Committee on Higher Education, that’s exactly what he should be saying.  I realized in that moment that over the last year, we’ve been yelling, marching, and advocating, but really we’ve been hoping that someone would listen to us.  We’ve been occupying buildings and signing petitions, plotting to make our voices stronger than the businessmen who run our schools and our state.  We’ve been skimming, deleting, forwarding, and reposting messages sent by various organizations opposing the cuts, knowing that together we wouldn’t be silenced.

Well, we’ve jumped that hurdle.  But what’s next?

I think it starts with supporting leaders we see standing up for us.  And that’s why, when the girl taking notes next to me wanted to confirm the name of AB 656’s author was Alberto Torres, I quickly answered, “Torrico actually, he’s also running for Attorney General.”  Now, I missed the endorsement meeting so as far as Cal Dems goes, this is probably blasphemous, but I guess bloggers are supposed to have an opinion and this is mine: We know that quality education reduces crime in our state.  We are all products of this.  For public safety, I want to support a leader who is willing to not only be tough on crime, but also stand up for preventing it by funding institutions like Cal.  That leader is Alberto Torrico.

The next step is continuing to use the tools that make our generation unique.  Grassroots organization is no longer about knocking on doors and phonebanking.  It’s about Facebook advertisements, calculated Tweets, and the simplicity of sharing YouTube videos.  In this way, we automatically endorse issues to our friends and relatives, often while avoiding the uncomfortable argument at family gatherings – you know the one with your (awkwardly closeted) conservative uncle about who should actually be paying the most taxes.  The petition for AB 656: Fair Share for Fair Tuition is encouragingly close to garnering 100, 000 signatures.  I don’t think that it’s unlikely to predict that if all its supporters reached out to all their friends on Facebook, defeat would be impossible and higher education would once again be California’s priority.