It’s not uncommon to see UNM student Ben Tucker wearing a papier-mÉchÇ capitalist pig mask or a cheerleading outfit as he screams, “My back is achin’. My bra’s too tight. My booty’s shakin’ from left to right. Shout it out — revolution!”
Tucker has been an integral part of campus protests since 1997 and will graduate Saturday with honors and a bachelor’s degree in American Studies.
Tucker moved from Philadelphia, Pa., to live with his father in Placitas, N.M., at the age of 15. He said he didn’t like high school, so he took summer courses and graduated early.
During his first semester at UNM, Tucker joined the Progressive Student Alliance, a student organization that opposes oppression and promotes social justice.
He is now co-chairman of the group, as well as an ASUNM court justice, an officer of the Hemp Coalition of UNM and co-founder of the New Mexico LOBOtomy, an underground newspaper.
Tucker said he will never forget when the Progressive Student Alliance went to Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization on Nov. 30, 1999.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
“That was the first day I ever got tear-gassed, the first day I ever got pepper sprayed; it was insane,” he said.
Tucker described how concussion grenades hit bus cables on the city streets causing sparks to fly. He said the Seattle experience made him want to protest more, though he began to question his tactics.
Tucker said his use of guerilla theater, which includes costumes and puppets, is a powerful way to get people’s attention.
“It’s less boring than a speech,” he said. “The puppet is an image. The media can’t mangle the puppet like it can mangle a message in a speech.”
He said puppets also are fun.
“There should be joy in resistance — not just pain,” he said.
Tucker said he decided to run for homecoming queen in 1999 in an attempt to blur gender lines but lost to ASUNM President Jennifer Liu. In his homecoming picture, he sat in front of a Mexican flag wearing a pink bridesmaid’s dress and a bandana across his mouth holding an AK-47 rifle.
Gail Sklar, Tucker’s mom, said she doesn’t like beauty pageants but thinks Ben would have made a great homecoming queen.
“I thought he should have won,” she said. “He’s also cute, and he has nice legs.”
Sklar said she was involved with teacher strikes and used to take Ben to the picket lines in his stroller. She said a policeman once threatened her son in an attempt to stop a protest.
“He said if I didn’t move, he was going to have his horse step on Ben,” she said.
Sklar was active in the anti-war and civil rights movements and said she taught Tucker about labor leader CÇsar Ch†vez.
She said Tucker’s protesting is great as long as it stays nonviolent. He is one of her heroes, she said, because he lives his beliefs and follows through on his words.
Sklar, who still lives in Pennsylvania, said she will be in Albuquerque Saturday.
“Nothing could keep me away from his graduation — a tornado, a flood — nothing,” she said.
UNM President Bill Gordon said he will miss having Tucker on campus.
“I think you always miss someone who cares a lot, and I think Ben always cared a lot about what was going on,” he said.
In Spring of 1999, Tucker set up a shack on the University House lawn to protest a proposed free speech policy that, he said, would have limited where one could speak on campus.
Gordon said he remembers sitting down with Tucker to discuss the logistics of the shanty, such as how the structure could be moved and when the sprinklers would come on.
“As it turned out, he kept from getting wet and we were still able to entertain our guests,” he said.
Gordon and Sklar both said they wouldn’t be surprised to see him in some kind of leadership role in the future.
But Tucker says he’s not a leader — he’s a decoy for the revolution.
“Whenever I go to Scholes Hall, the cops focus on me,” he said. “Whenever I go to an Al Gore rally, the cops sort of keep an eye on me.”
Tucker said he’s getting more radical. He said change in the government will not happen without a revolution.
“A revolution means, basically, scrapping all the institutions that we live under now and creating an entirely new structure where we can live without oppression, and the violence, which we call poverty, no longer exists,” he said. “If we don’t demand what we want, we’ll never get what we need.”
Tucker said his goals after graduation are to consume less and actively resist the capitalistic system.
He works as a councilor and mediator for the Landlord/Tenant Hotline and said he plans to a be a VISTA volunteer under Americorps to organize housing and urban development tenants.
“It’s a way I can get out into the community and hopefully act as a Band-Aid,” he said.
Tucker laughed when asked where he would be in 10 years. He said he’d be an astronaut, rock-star or fireman.
“I doubt I’ll be a congressman or senator, although it would be fun,” he said.
Tucker said in 10 years he’ll be more cynical, and it will take a bullet or an electric chair to keep him from protesting.
