Tuesday's Angelica protest was appropriate

I attended the March 22 event in Griffith, which had been advertised as an intimate chat where President Richard Brodhead would reveal his ideas on present and future undergraduate life.

My initial reaction when four protesters stepped onstage and unfurled their banner which read “Don’t Angelica Workers Deserve a Living Wage?” was embarrassment. I felt sorry for Brodhead; this was supposed to be his grand introduction to undergraduates, but the protesters had usurped his voice. The protest seemed inappropriate and disrespectful to Brodhead.

Luckily for him, though, the audience was firmly on his side. Several audience members shouted that the protesters should organize their own event, since this one was Brodhead’s. Some audience members felt that their time was being wasted. Many felt uncomfortable. As Brodhead began to speak from the stage’s right corner, the audience laughed unnaturally loudly at his jokes. When he concluded, they gave a standing ovation: compensation for their discomfort.

Since then, I have reflected on the protest and its juxtaposition with Brodhead’s first major speech on the future of undergraduate life. My conclusion is that the president’s speech on undergraduate life is perhaps the most appropriate setting for a protest advocating a living wage.

The reality is that millions of people suffer in low-paying jobs while Duke undergraduates live the comfortable life of the educated. In a talk where the president’s vision amounted to the creation of a website listing internship opportunities and a loft-style Central, I applaud the juxtaposition of a protest forcibly recalling to undergraduates that many people are worse off than we are.

The protesters stood up and said, silently, that they would not condone an undergraduate body complacent on this issue. Personally, I wish to thank the protesters for reminding me that the disadvantaged need a voice and that the struggle for their rights is rarely pretty. Finally, I ask President Brodhead to answer directly the question raised on the banner.

Oaz Nir