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The
The "Dead"
Demand Answers Headline from the Daily Nexus 11/25/2009)
should have read "Dead People Demand Answers"
I have been drafting this editorial for over two months.
There were two reasons that I have had trouble finishing it:
- It
is truly difficult and painful to discuss this topic; and
- I
was hoping that someone would steal the thunder and write (in a thoughtful
and constructive way) about the people who died last year at UCSB.
I really hate to write stories about people dying –
particularly young people with so much of life ahead of them.
The purpose of the Dark Side is to stop the carnage at UCSB/IV;
therefore, every death associated with UCSB (and most certainly those
attributable to drugs, alcohol, suicide, and violence) is a failure for The Dark
Side.
At first glance one could conclude that the Dark Side isn't
the only publication with an aversion to writing about dead people.
UCSB and the Daily Nexus don't seem to like to write about dead people either;
however, I fear that my first-glance reaction was wrong.
It is not that UCSB abhors the subject; instead they actively avoid the
topic on political grounds: out of sight, out of mind.
To acknowledge the problems would call into question the benefit that the
school derives from maintaining its “party-school” image.
It appears that the UCSB community engages in intentional amnesia.
Let me test your personal memory.
Here are a few names:
Noah Krom
Sara Tahmassebi
Chad Andrew Briner
Jaymie Rose Darrow
Do you recognize any of these names?
Probably not. All of them
were UCSB students. All of them died
within the past 12 months or so – and these are just the ones that were
reported. These four recent deaths
join the ranks of almost 100 people who have died in the past decade or so as a
result of the UCSB/IV party scene.
The amount of coverage that the Daily Nexus (and UCSB) afforded to the deaths of these four people
was less than the coverage afforded to the new burrito options in a local
student haunt and certainly far less than the almost continuous coverage given
to the imaginary assault on student “rights” by the diabolical Isla Vista
Foot Patrol.
Without knowing why these young people died, how can we
have an intelligent conversation about reducing the death rate?
How can we reduce suicides, drug and alcohol addiction, sexual assaults,
and a host of other crimes (that are far too prevalent at UCSB) unless we
understand the root causes.
The student body is currently up in arms about a fee
increase and staged a die-in protest.
While I am opposed to the current fee increases, the truth is that the
fee hikes are not a matter of life and death.
My guess is that the families of those listed above would gladly pay the
fee increase if they could have their loved one back.
In the above cases, the actual cause of death was never
reported. Nor was there any
discussion about how the community might avoid similar tragedies in the future.
Why? They don't want to
discuss why close to a hundred young people have died because of the party scene
at UCSB/IV. They publicly shy away
from discussing the problems associated with the party school image while
continuing to use it as a recruiting tool.
The deaths of the students merited little coverage.
Here are some excerpts of the reporting on the deaths from the Daily
Nexus to give you an idea of how the deaths were handled:
"The last weeks
of Spring Quarter were marked by tragedy after fourth-year student Noah Krom
died from falling off the cliff along Del Playa Drive."
"Sara Tahmassebi,
a second-year UCSB student, died in her Isla Vista apartment Saturday. The cause
of death is unknown, pending a toxicology report."
"On Sept. 7,
UCSB student Chad Andrew Briner died in his Isla Vista apartment at the age of
21. The cause of Briners death is still unknown, pending a toxicology
report."
"UCSB student
Jaymie Rose Darrow died on July 19 (2008) while visiting the La Jolla Indian
Reservation near San Diego. She was 19 years old."
That's about it for these four students.
The causes of death were never published – no follow-up at all. There
has been no discussion as to how these types of deaths might be avoided in the
future. What we hear is silence from
the UCSB Administration and the Daily Nexus. I am
certain that the Chancellor’s office must have made some statement to the
families. Yang usually makes
one of his obsequious apologies to the family of the deceased.
Last week the Daily
Nexus reported that UCSB students got upset because Chancellor Yang wasn't
responding to their demands to discuss the fee hikes.
After years of the student body extolling the virtues of the good
Chancellor, they have finally awoken to what many parents have known all along:
Yang doesn't discuss tough issues, he simple refuses to respond. When
he is forced to respond, it is with some platitudinous press release.
His favorite response is the vapid apology.
Regarding Yang, the Daily
Nexus, reporting on the fee hike issues said,
"At that point, the crowd demanded that the chancellor
offer an explanation as to why he failed to address the student body about the
tuition increase before the initiative was passed.
"Yang expressed his sincerest apology to the crowd and
informed the protesters of a series of town hall meetings he has scheduled for
next week to discuss possible means of alleviating the budget deficit.
"Dissatisfied with his explanation, the demonstrators
yelled, ‘We don't need sympathy! We need action, Why didn't you publicly
denounce the 32 percent increase?’
"Urvashi Nagrani, a fifth-year film studies major,
said Yang's lack of communication with students is unacceptable.
Can we get a cell phone number? Nagrani said. Because we haven't [heard
back from you in e-mails]."
I would like to pose a question to the student protestors:
Which is more important, the lost of a human life or the fee increases?
Chancellor Yang will not even publicly condemn the senseless loss of
life, assaults, or rapes that occurs in and around UCSB.
Do you actually think he gives a rip about you and your complaints about
fee increases? Yang is the CEO
of UCSB, Inc. His
interest is in protecting his “corporate brand” and making money – big
money.
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