USC should form committee to strengthen impact on local issues
Even after nearly two years, I'm still getting used to Columbia.
Like many Southern cities, it has its charm, but it also has its dangers. To really know a city, it's necessary to see both of its faces. I know many students who don't make this effort. After all, many have only stopped here temporarily. We study, graduate, (hopefully) leave for fast-paced and well-rewarded futures. In a few years, our impressions of Columbia will be a haze of dinners in the Vista, nights in Five Points and rallies at the Statehouse. Students need to realize they have much more invested in Columbia than a couple of years and a few good nights. For many, this city becomes a surrogate home and for many more an actual community we hesitate to leave. It's up to us to respect that.
However, one facet of the Columbia-USC relationship has begun to surprise me. The city seems unwilling to give us the same respect. Many still remember last semester's debates over 2 a.m. bar closings and youth curfews. These measures unfairly target students and the city's youth, turning us into the villains behind violence downtown. The 2 a.m. rule and increased police presence have arrived, but what have been the results? Assaults, attacks and theft while cops hunt through Five Points, drinking tickets at the ready.
Perhaps safety around campus has always been an issue, but I think differently. Comments on The Daily Gamecock's "Kidnapping, assault close to campus" express shock and fear that a crime like this could happen in the campus's "backyard," so to speak. Violence is peaking, but it now seems students are the victims rather than the direct cause.
So which is it, Columbia? Are we villains or victims? Why can't we simply be like everyone else: citizens who are responsible for their actions, deserve protection regardless of those actions and have earned the right to speak for our own safety? It is in this last aspect that Columbia has failed to respect us. When new measures for Five Points were discussed, student opinion was not represented. When residents of University Hill approached law enforcement about increased vandalism in their neighborhood, student opinion was not represented. Columbia is content to decide for us without engaging our own opinions of our safety and our habits.
This attitude cannot continue. It continually paints students as in need of being "taken care of." I would suggest giving Student Government a more representative role in Columbia. And though some of us might cringe when we hear SG, I think this would take the organization in a new direction, away from the squabbles of new initiatives and group funding. Either SG should offer that voice, or USC should foster an organization that can.
No matter where that voice comes from, it should say one thing loudly and clearly: We are students, we are Columbians and we can be a powerful force in improving this city.