CSU Monterey Bay turns 20 this year. And they celebrate by paying homage to 19 years of trouble-makers, rebels and activists.
Thursday to Saturday, the university hosts the 19th Annual Social Justice Colloquium, a convening of local activists, students and faculty, and one famous rabble rousing intellectual socialist professor.
One of the organizers, Mrinal Sinha, is an assistant professor of psychology. He was baptized in the curriculum of social justice when he was, himself, a student at CSUMB near its inception, 1998 to 2001.
“When I came to school here, my consciousness was transformed,” he says. “I grew up in middle class white communities in San Jose. Here, I met a lot of working class students. Through my friendships and the curriculum, it changed how I view the economic system, deconstructed the whole ‘rugged individualism/pull-yourself-up-by-the-boostraps’ stuff.”
He went on to get his graduate degree and now co-teaches a class called “Domination & Resistance: U.S.” with one of his former professors, Gerald Shenk. The course description reads: “[Students] develop the ability to use contemporary critical theories of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and ecology for understanding conquests, colonial power, imperialism and resistance to domination.”
Thursday, the public is invited to meet up with student organizers in the Otter Cross Cultural Center to create posters and march at 6pm in the name of human rights. That segues into a Social Justice Spoken Word/Poetry Slam. The next day, they bring out the superstar: Cornel West. He’s taught at Harvard, Yale and Princeton (where he created a renowned African American Studies Department). Like Noam Chomsky, he’s balanced scholarly work and deft articulation with popular culture (Real Time with Bill Maher, Tavis Smiley, The Matrix 2) and street-level activism. The university is actually keeping his appearance on the hush because they want students, especially, to be able to attend, and they expect this first-come-first-serve event ($10 for the public, at University Center) to sell out.
The next day brings an all-day session of talks, brainstorming and organizing work around the topic of the past, present and future of local social justice. In the morning, speakers from campus and the greater community, like Helen Rucker and Steven Russell, talk about their time in the trenches. A Q&A follows.
Then everyone divvies up into breakout sessions to talk progress. Then lunch is served – for free, so as not to exclude anyone who can’t pay. The closing session asks “Where do we go from here?”
One thing seems evident: Wherever that is, we’ll go together.
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