Culture Riot

I’ve been to several student-run and student-organized conferences and events over my life span at UCSC. Many of them have been obviously chaotic and many of them have perfected sprezzatura, the art of concealling chaos in the case of student activism.

For the past two months, students here at UCSC have been running around, recently almost like headless poultry, putting finishing touches to the 19th annual Student of Color Conference. Late in the summer, UCSC won the bid to host the conference, to be held on our campus this weekend. Since then, planning committee members have gathered an impressive list of speakers, workshops, performers and attendees. In addition, fundraising has been equally as amazing, with over $9,000 raised in the past week alone.

These are students – first-year through grad students – who, on top of their course load and job requirements, gathered weekly (and recently, daily) to come up with a budget, a plan of action and detailed logistics of a conference that plans to host over 800 people. It’s truly an impressive feat and the planning and steering committees deserve a lot of respect for pulling this off.

Each year, hundreds of students, staff and some faculty from all of California’s UCs and other universities attend the Student of Color Conference (SOCC) to show solidarity for each others’ communities, spaces and issues. SOCC is not just a weekend trip, it’s a lesson in organizing and creating and defending spaces that are left out of California’s Plan for Higher Education.

This year’s theme reads “In solidarity and struggle: the fight for our rights” and many students are coming from campuses where this fight is ongoing. While SOCC offers a place for them to learn, organize and network, it also offers a space to chill out and reconnect through music and arts.

It’s going to be huge and I’m super excited about this weekend. Watch this space for updates as the countdown to the event continues and photos and comments on the weekend.

Peace,
-a.