Bruin Walk fence ultimate symbol of all that is evil in world

Monday, November 9, 1998

Bruin Walk fence ultimate symbol of all that is evil in
world

BARRIER: Wall obviously attempt by administration to foster
student division

By Christopher A. Kennedy

I write this in regards to a fence.

There’s a new fence down by Ackerman, separating the people from
the people for a brief stretch and then receding into nonexistence.
A hundred feet of glimmering steel, erecting a nice, cozy little
monument to progress at all levels, to acknowledge yet another of
man’s efforts towards compartmentalizing the world.

It’s the kind of fence someone could, if they were so inclined,
climb up and over at least once a minute without breaking a
noticeable sweat or even breathing heavily for an extended period
of time.

I hate that fence. It’s been there all of a few days, and
already I rail against it like an unjust law, beating my head
futilely against its wobbly chain links. I throw myself against it
each time I pass, hoping against hope that this minor assault will
be enough to unseat this monstrosity from its death grip on the
sidewalk.

If I were Joseph McCarthy, the fence would be my Communist
plague, my Red Threat; were I Charles Manson, the fence would lie
slaughtered in the walkway it now obstructs. I am, however, a
powerless student of nothing, and therefore I am herded back and
forth by this hated fence.

It’s not that the fence is so obnoxious in itself. It doesn’t
really stand out from any other fence, it’s not bedecked with signs
or festooned with garish streamers that blind the eye and cloud the
mind; it doesn’t produce ear-splitting, blood-curdling howls at
random individuals to shock and scare the passing pedestrians.

What it does is nothing.

It serves no conceivable purpose, it doesn’t prevent anybody
from doing anything except crossing from one featureless section of
pavement to another featureless section of pavement for 100
feet.

At either end of the 100 feet of fence, people can cross freely
from one side to the other, all is well with the world once again.
But for that brief stretch, it’s like being in a prisoner of war
(POW) camp; rigid security, can’t go there, must stay here, mustn’t
associate with those on the other side.

I have no idea why the fence was erected in the first place; no
doubt this is one of the many facets of the fence that enrage me
beyond rationality.

It serves no conceivable purpose, there was no clear or even
obscure need for a fence, and I’m sure it was paid for with my
money.

I don’t want a fence there, nobody does, and yet there it
stands, a self-willed creation like the Creator himself. What sick
maniac in the high councils felt a fence was just the thing to
spruce up the region? Why was it approved by someone else? What
madness has taken hold of our administration so that they would
erect such an imprisonment of free will amidst a university of
higher learning and supposed free thought?

So tear the fence down! Free us from our disgraceful captivation
and release us to walk freely and without prejudice! Force us not
to choose from left or right, one group or another, but rather to
mingle freely with people of both sides, whether they be
right-walkers, left-walkers or middle-walkers of some variety.

These labels do us no conceivable good and may do irreparable
harm.

I foresee a day when right-walkers riot against the preferential
treatment of the cushy life of left-walkers, and the left-walkers
turn their tear gas and napalm on their right-walking brethren.
Haven’t we seen enough hate and strife? Tear down the fence, and
stand up for humanity!

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