Outside the SGA

Anthony Harris
Opinions Editor
anthonydeanharris@gmail.com

I would like to start this article with an official stance from those of us on the staff of the Maroon Tiger. Our official policy is that we will not endorse any candidate and we will not assist on political campaigns.

In order to maintain journalistic integrity, we don’t try to interfere in matters involving the Student Government Association. We are reporters in a school of 2,800 people. This place is far too small for this publication to give preference. It’s far too small for any staff member to join a staff as a speechwriter or even to pass out flyers. We mull this stance over every year and it seems more crucial in some years than others. Still, it seems really important that we say this now before the fur begins to fly.

The rest of this, I say on my own.

As of the time of the first date of release of this issue, there are less than 45 days until I graduate from Morehouse College. I have classes, graduation fees, and the daily trials of getting out of this place. Thinking about how I can help Morehouse in little more than the words I type on this page is not my concern. I’m glad to say I cannot join a political team because of my position because it allows me to not have to say I don’t at all want to join a team in the first place.

I have said over the years here, anything on this campus I really wanted to do, I have done without the assistance of the SGA. Honestly, I haven’t wanted to do much around here; still, I didn’t need help to do it. When I fought for the grass a year ago, I had meetings with people and wrote on these issues on my own, not with a political office.

When I fought for professors who were losing tenure, I met with Former Provost David Taylor after publication of the Maroon Tiger was complete for the year. I questioned him honestly about tenure practices merely as a concerned student.

I go to class everyday. I have dinner with friends. I go out on the weekends (largely because there’s nothing to do around here). I read articles on the internet. I take a part in my English department. I attend my weekly meetings for the newspaper. None of these really need the SGA for me to do them any better. If they did, I don’t know what they would do.

They haven’t really improved the internet (I still instant message with Meebo as opposed to Trillian like I prefer). The wireless still isn’t campus wide, despite their “work.” Student activities are at the same lackluster level they have been before and any strides towards improvements are done through independent organizations, especially the fraternities who do most of their activities out of their own budgets.

So with 45 days left, I ask the question: what is it they do again? In four years, Bakari Sellers, Dewey Fowler, Marcus Edwards, or Stanley Onuoha have not helped me in the day to day plod of going to class. None of them has bought my textbooks. None of them has made sure the water was hot in my residence hall. I am a man, independent of them. I am a student who attends a school.

There is an old saying, “All politics are local.” A friend of mine once said politics are working alright if people can get up everyday and go to work, or to the market, take their kids to school. The little things are all that matter. Frankly, there’s a functioning infrastructure here that ensures I get to class. It could be better, but it works well enough. The SGA has no bearing on my classes.

As a student, this is really all that matters to me. I’m a man of my work. No political office will make a difference of that. And I wouldn’t want to help change that either.

So to all those interested in running for president or anything, don’t call and don’t email me saying you want to form a panel or group to “discuss the issues.” I’ve had enough of those calls at inopportune moments. With 45 days left, my issue is with getting my signatures and getting out of this place with a Bachelors of Arts degree and little else.