Puppet-Show Politics

By Adelaja Obajimi, Editor in Chief

During my first semester as a student of Prince George’s Community College, I was excited about a lot of things but also naïve about many others. One thing I was naïve about was how student government works. During a television production class, we shot a debate for student leaders Kien Bui, Erika Scott, and a few others. Two PGCC staffers served as moderators for the debate. There was only one problem: the campaigners had no one debating or contesting against them. It wasn’t that their opponents didn’t show up; the problem was they didn’t exist in the first place.

When the so-called debate started, the “moderators” asked the leaders various questions, which from where I stood, looked like the answers had been prepared. The whole process looked like some kind of staged, puppet-show Q&A program, and my classmates and I couldn’t relate to the questions. I couldn’t help asking myself if my class had somehow been meant to represent the greater population of students on campus. Quite frankly, I was beyond disappointed, I felt like I’d been robbed. Even worse, my intelligence had been insulted. I’ve seen high schools with better electoral processes.

I wondered if the current leaders were elected or handpicked. It seems like all a student needed to do was fill out some paperwork and skate into a new position. I never saw any posters or ads anywhere around the school that said anything about student government re-elections. I didn’t see anyone else campaign and even when the final elections took place, I had no idea where and when it occurred. Had I failed to pay attention? Did I miss the ads in the newspaper?

The elections are coming up again and I’m willing to bet my next paycheck that this is news to you. I believe a lot more should be done to enhance student participation when it comes to school politics. Our school should be graduating students who are brave enough to reach for the sky and dream of becoming the next President Barack Obama or Justice Sonya Sotomayor. So riddle me this: how do we expect that to happen when the basic example of campus democracy is ignored and yet no one cries wolf. A robbery of our basic American rights went highly unnoticed and it most likely will happen again, a few weeks from now. The Caribbean Festival gets more promotion than the election of the Student Governance Board President who represents me in front of the PGCC Board of Trustees. And that’s just not right.