Editor,
As a co-founder and member of a politically left student club on campus, I would like the opportunity to speak to some issues that have been raised in the Daily Lobo these past few weeks. I would like to start off by giving some background information on who we are. Red Student Faction is a chartered student club at UNM that has been on campus for one year. Our guiding principles are to critically interrogate systems of oppression and join others in systemically challenging oppression and exploitation.
Some of our major accomplishments this past year have been to work with other student groups and to support and help pass several resolutions in ASUNM, including but not limited to: Celebrating Black History Month, supporting Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance and Resilience Day/Dia de la Raza, condemning Islamophobia and supporting driver’s licenses and greater access to education for undocumented immigrants. We have also participated in and organized events supporting LGBTQ folks, prisoners, international solidarity, and helped get left-leaning students elected to ASUNM. We have consistently spoken out against settler colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, hetero-patriarchy and ableism at UNM, and I would like to take this opportunity to publicly do so again.
Red Student Faction condemns recent letters in the Daily Lobo attacking Islam and Muslims. We unequivocally stand with the Muslim student population at UNM and we will continue to support resolutions and take actions that further open up the University to all students including Muslims. What I would like to point out is that things are changing at UNM. More and more students are becoming active in demanding that the University be responsive to the needs, wants, dreams and desires of students. The negative reactions to these changes are only happening because we are drawing the lines more and more clearly. We are holding the University accountable and challenging privilege and power. Nothing comes without struggle. We believe that the University belongs to the people, oppressed people, working class people, and we will continue to fight for this.
It is the heart of she or he that we seek; who looks at a life of vapid materialism, capitalist excess, racist violence, heterosexist patriarchy and imperialist academia, and finds it simply intolerable. It may only be a handful of students who make this choice, but we are here to applaud and honor that choice — and warn you that though the suffering may be great — it is nothing compared to the joy of doing the right thing.
Sincerely,
Michael Butler
Red Student Faction-UNM
