WPIRG, YOUR MEMBERSHIP, AND ITS MESSAGE:
After your initial three weeks of term, you have automatically pledged your
membership to WPIRG; membership dues for WPIRG make part of a mandatory, though
refundable, group of per-term student fees.
Your dues buy you a share in the operating principles of WPIRG, which is
committed to a mandate of anti-racism and other issues of social justice. That
is reassuring, until we realize that WPIRG is defining racism in a way quite
contradictory to common sensibilities about trust, tolerance, and
dialogue-building.
WPIRG defines "racism" in its official pamphlet by the same name: "Racism:
It's Everyone's Problem". There, WPIRG expressly defines "racism" to be the
combination of privilege and power, explicitly independent of ethnicity and
oppression:
"racism = PRIVILEGE + POWER"
"Racism is
discrimination based neither on ethnicity nor place of origin but solely on
colour. This makes it the most basic form of discrimination because it is so
obviously visible."
That definition may seem to be acceptable in some contexts until it
is applied to WPIRG's treatment of Jewish students, who are considered by WPIRG
to be "white" unable to experience racism and, when they are acting in
solidarity, unable not to be racist.
That position became dramatically clear in Spring Term of 2003, when WPIRG
sponsored a lecture by Norman Finkelstein. Jewish students, independently and
through Jewish Students Association, and other concerned undergraduates and
members of Waterloo's community appealed to WPIRG not to sponsor the event.
Norman Finkelstein authors generalizations which stoke eruptions of
anti-Jewish sentiments: "American Jews courageously put unruly Blacks in their
place. Lording it over those least able to defend themselves: that is the real
content of organized American Jewry's reclaimed courage." That type of message
explains why he is quoted on Zundelsite (an illegal hate site by decision of
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in 2002).
Students didn't ask that WPIRG either cancel or protest the lecture, but
they were adamant that WPIRG should not encourage perceptibly anti-Jewish
choices when other options were available. WPIRG's Board Of Directors
unanimously overruled its sole Jewish member and proceeded, in spite of heavy
protest, to fund and to promote the event.
In the course of his lecture, Finkelstein associated Jews with Nazis and
thus was confronted not surprisingly by Jewish members of the audience in the
question and answer period. Dr. Finkelstein neither apologized for, nor
qualified, nor retracted his comments; he instead volunteered that the Jewish
students were weeping "crocodile's tears", were hiding behind The Holocaust,
and were afraid of the truth. WPIRG was, in turn, challenged to explain the
lecture in terms of anti-racist respect nurturing dialogue, which WPIRG's
sponsorship is supposed to guarantee.
In response, WPIRG released a formal statement. It was another opportunity
for WPIRG to refine its distinction between racism, which WPIRG says Jewish
audience members provoke, and anti-Jewish sentiment, which is different from
and less important than anything resembling racism. WPIRG lists problematic
occurrences at the lecture to be, in order, "malicious heckling by the
audience", "racism [against Palestinians and by the audience]",
"anti-Jewishness", and, finally, "inappropriate comments by the lecturer, Dr.
Finkelstein, to audience members (e.g. calling them Nazi-like)".
Notwithstanding pledges to the contrary, WPIRG has yet to retract its
literature in which Jewish people are not racially recognized and has never
issued a formal statement affirming the reality of discrimination which ethnic
Jews confront as a people.
The persistent denial of a legitimate racial identity to Jewish students is
at the foundation of WPIRG's inherently anti-Jewish attitudes.
If you don't share the same idea about racism, you don't share
WPIRG's idea of social justice, and you probably should not be sharing either
your membership, your money, or the support which they entail.
YOUR MEMBERSHIP DOLLARS ARE CURRENTLY AT WORK FOR
WPIRG, ITS PRIORITIES, AND ITS PERSPECTIVES.
WPIRG, YOUR MONEY, AND YOUR MESSAGE:
For fee-paying undergraduates at University Of Waterloo, at exclusively one
time per term is WPIRG unequivocally accountable, in a way independent of
interpretation from WPIRG's Board Of Directors. Throughout the beginning three
weeks of term, students may request refunds on and cancellations of their
memberships to WPIRG.
Please take the time for a visit to WPIRG's office at Student Life Centre
and carefully consider your refund. Here are some considerations.
You may take your refund and re-invest the money in a different
organization either which better serves your interests or which less offends
against your conscience. Many organizations and initiatives which have some
association with WPIRG are independently accessible, for financing and for
other participation.
You may wish to target what you support and to exclude some of
the distasteful things which WPIRG is otherwise empowered to do on the
collective behalf of students.
You may wish to support WPIRG in theory but nevertheless be wary
of some recent trends in its practice. That is best done through a strategy of
effectively retroactive funding. WPIRG sells memberships throughout the year;
they may be bought voluntarily after WPIRG has satisfied, by your standards,
its expressed commitments against racism and in favour of other issues of
social justice and environmental responsibility. A year-long membership is
$15.00, which is slightly more expensive than three instalments each of $4.75
per term, but the difference of 75 cents is a worthwhile investment in the
fiscal and ethical accountability of an important campus-wide organization.
That is better than the surrender of your membership dues with every term, in
which different Board members may bring specific and relatively unfriendly
agenda for budgetary expenditures.
If you elect to withhold your membership dues and WPIRG does
conduct itself honourably, remember to reward its change of character with a
year-long membership, yet if you not be here. Otherwise, the dues are not
effectively retroactive. Naturally, you may at some point be leery of this
approach, which equally amounts to advanced funding.
If WPIRG fails to win your trust, you may wish to reconsider a
refund, pure and simple.
Finally, you may wish to be actively involved in a change at
WPIRG. Many responsible students are committed to the idea of an honourably
run, student-driven, and campus-wide force for the community. Some of them are
turning their energy and optimism into a position on WPIRG's Board Of
Directors, and others are hoping to redirect WPIRG's resources into projects
and action groups more in line with community-strengthening and
bridge-building.
That kind of involvement requires a membership, which should be
an active investment in a new and better WPIRG.
CONSIDER WHAT WPIRG CONSIDERS TO BE SOCIAL JUSTICE;
PLEASE RECONSIDER YOUR MEMBERSHIP AT WPIRG.
[ Parent ]
|
