I’m a Republican and a centrist
It’s difficult to get beyond groupthink in Berkeley
In January, I was sitting in my Latin American Studies class when my professor walked in wearing a pink knitted hat, with two cat ears on stitched on top. You know the one I mean. Instead of starting his typical history lecture, he started talking to the class about President Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico, saying things like, “I know I’m a professor, but I have biases.”
I looked around the lecture hall. All around me, kids were nodding and doing that snapping thing with their fingers. A lot of people were like, yeah, we’re getting our free speech on. I smiled and didn’t say anything. I knew I was outnumbered.
That’s pretty typical when you’re a Republican at UC Berkeley.
I’ve been a Republican as long as I can remember. I’m used to being surrounded by people who disagree with me. I grew up in a predominantly blue city, Miami. I really like having debates and discussions about politics. That’s part of what I hoped to find when I decided to go to UC Berkeley, one of the most liberal campuses in the United States, for undergrad studies. But instead of discovering open-minded individuals ready to debate their views, I found myself silenced by my liberal peers. In search of political and moral support, I joined the Berkeley College Republicans at the beginning of this school year.
Being an official member of that organization has its ups and downs. It’s nice to talk openly about my political opinions, but it comes with a price. When I staff the group’s table on Sproul Plaza, strangers come up to yell at me — and not in a fun “I want to debate you” kind of way. They call me a bad person. They ask me where I’m from, and then tell me to go back there. I’ve even been physically attacked.
And you know what? I get it. The organization has a bad name on campus. Affirmative action bake sales (that one was before my time), Ann Coulter speaker requests, the whole Milo Yiannopoulos thing. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in a healthy dose of controversy, but in my opinion, asking “Would you rather your child get feminism or cancer” isn’t controversial, it’s horrible.
Most people — Berkeley Republicans included — don’t actually want these extreme speakers to show up.
Yes, being provocative irritates the liberal masses, which can be funny, but in the end, it’s self-promotional, not thoughtprovoking. Until the hard-core conservatives and liberals around me tone things down, I feel like I’m a moderate stuck in the middle, fighting for reasonable discussion on two fronts.
And yet, I have hope. Occasionally, when I spend all day on Sproul, there are some individuals who will come up to me and engage in a lively conversation — a real conversation. We’ll go back and forth on the ethics of abortion, or global warming, or gun regulations. In some cases, we start agreeing and coming up with new ideas on how to tackle these issues. And in those moments, it feels like the UC Berkeley I originally came for.