YCC presidential candidates uniform

By Henry Wong

My roommate suggested that minority students have no right to complain just because they're minority students. If they aren't running for office themselves, he argued, what right do they have to talk about it?

I thought about this for some time, wondering why I was concerned about something so meaningless as the YCC. Who cares? After all, candidates like Chris Barnard, JE '99, are using the overall lack of respect for the YCC as the focus of their campaigns.

One major reason we should care is that the student government is supposed to represent the student body. More accurately, the YCC should represent the voters. That gives us the right to talk about candidates, their positions, and their legitimacy.

That only white males are running for the top position in our student government brings up a set of issues more important than dining hall surveys, Spring Fling, and card-operated laundry machines.

One would think that minorities and women would jump into student government, an area where Yalies can rise to positions of influence without any experience. We often hear minority communities complaining vociferously about how there are so few minorities in top positions in government, business, and academia. And we often hear women crying out about the sexism that bars them from top leadership positions in America.

So why didn't one minority or female decide to run for president? It is true that there is a good number of women and minorities running this year--but for every position except the most prominent. Don't any of these candidates want to hold the top leadership position instead of working in the background? This year's YCC president, Kimbie Taylor, TC '99, is female--why is this such an exception?

I'd like to think that the most logical explanation for this is that many of the qualified minority and female students are using their leadership and organizational skills in other areas, such as in minority student organizations and the Women's Center, and do not have time to lead two groups.

But that explanation may not be satisfactory. Surely there are enough strong-willed minority and female students who want a piece of the YCC glory. The "lack of available leaders" argument doesn't work for women, especially since Yale is half female. The argument that some racist and sexist power structure prevents candidates from running for president is too extreme, considering that the position is fully open to all interested Yalies.

Maybe students feel they cannot bring change from the inside, and they have to confront the system from the oustide.

If so, I think the fault lies with minority and female students who don't wish to participate in the activities of the general student body. Instead of trying to portray themselves as minorities and/or women first, or alienating the rest of Yale with offensive campaigns like the "Whiteout" protest in an attempt to spark meaningful discussion, they should try to make people remember that we are, first and foremost, Yalies. Having a diverse list of candidates for YCC president would be a good start.

Henry Wong is a freshman in Davenport.

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