Taylor says SOS has "nothing new to offer you."
I am going BARE because I refuse to be silent anymore. I don’t think that you should either. SOS has nothing new to offer you. Their criticisms of the BARE ticket expose their own childish fears of expressing any opinion. In their effort to “not offend” students or to “not have personal politics,” they consciously diminish the mindset that empowers any student to critically challenge the very apparent problems of Ohio University. Their need to provide “tangible solutions” shows their reluctance to do actual work.
They want to incentivize students for learning and respecting the experiences of marginalized groups. I, as a black, queer person at this university, find this idea both idiotic and offensive. SOS seems to think it's time to pay students to learn about LGBTQA people. Maybe the next step is to pay students to care about rape culture, mass incarceration, racism and more.
They say that we need to please the administration in order to be taken seriously. This proves that SOS and the administration wish to invalidate any honest criticism of them that has not been filtered through bureaucracy and respectability politics.
This school year, I have organized marches, rallies and teach-ins. I brought speakers to Ohio University, spoke on panels to classes and in the Front Room. My friends and I have worked to unionize RAs, have cultural competency courses at OU, highlight the lack of funding for SAP and expose racial disparities on campus, and I will continue to do so. All of this could not have been done without organizations like FEMME, F--kRapeCulture and New BLAC. It is through refusing to represent students and instead to empower each other’s movements that we begin to lay the foundation of an Ohio University community that actively combats complacency.
A student government that is too afraid to have an opinion on anything is the same as a student government that stands by as students are crippled with debt, fear walking home at night or have to endure racist comments in class. It ensures that not only will students have no voice, but also that their representatives or student politicians will be too chicken shit to actually do anything that rightfully challenges themselves, others or the OU administration.
SOS confuses critical questions of their empty ideologies for being attacked. They stand immobile when we need our student leaders willing to work towards a democratic Ohio University. They see freedom of speech and a fight for direct democracy as a personal threat to their resumes and fragile reputations.
BARE works to be the inherent opposite of the cowardice that SOS has expressed in response to the need for real change.
Ryant Taylor is a senior studying English, a coordinator for the Ohio University Student Union, LGBTQA commissioner for Student Senate, and a former columnist at The Post. He is a 2015-16 Student Senate presidential candidate running on the BARE ticket.
