I am writing in response to the Nov. 14 column entitled “Hors d’oeuvres”. I understand that it was written at least in part to be humorous, but unfortunately it came across as a misrepresentation of both Veterans Day and Christmas. I have worked with veterans at a VA hospital and I do agree that Veterans Day is often overlooked by the civilian population. It should not be just a day to sleep in, but one to remember, honor and thank the veterans for their service. Much can and should be written about the sacrifices that they have made for our country.

Yet, rather than focusing on the veterans, White tried to concoct a story about Veterans Day competing with Christmas. How sad that Christmas has become so commercialized that many people do not know the details of the Biblical story. A few points to clarify: One, Jesus did not come into the world to start a commercial holiday. He came for people to come to know God. Two, he was not born in a manger; giving birth in an animal feeding trough would have been pretty difficult for Mary. The manger was used as a bed for him. Three, The Da Vinci Code (a fictionalized book) is not an authoritative source of information about Jesus. Try the Bible. Four, Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus. His death (and resurrection) are commemorated at Easter (which is not really about the Easter bunny).

Jesus and Santa should not be viewed as “partners in crime” who promote an obnoxious fantasy holiday at the expense of remembering veterans. For people around the world, Christmas is a holiday of deep spiritual significance. I invite White, as well as anyone else who is interested, to attend a Christmas service at any local church and better understand why this holiday is celebrated.

Hopefully future Veterans Day columns will have a better focus on veterans, rather than offensive and misleading information about a day that many of us hold sacred.

Tara Rogers
Ph.D. student in nutritional biology

On Friday, UC Davis campus police used pepper spray to break up student protesters sitting and linking arms on the Quad. This travesty came at the end of a week of peaceful student protests in defense of public education.

This was completely unacceptable, uncalled for and inappropriate. Police should not have used pepper spray or excessive force on peaceful protesters, and the people responsible for these actions need to be held accountable.

Lieutenant John Pike, the officer who stepped over students to pepper spray them in the face, should immediately be removed from his position as a campus police officer. The actions he took against peaceful protesters were inexcusable. Furthermore, any other police officers who abused their power during this ordeal should also be removed from the police force.

Chief Annette Spicuzza needs to correct her misleading justification for the police actions, which she made during a press conference. John Pike stepping over students is clear evidence that police officers were not entrapped by protesters, as Spicuzza said.

Campus police should strive to protect students, and the act of pepper spraying the protesters was a clear violation of this goal. The university should revisit policies about using any kind of violence against peaceful student protesters, and changes should be made.

Students should and need to be able to feel safe on campus.

Chancellor Katehi announced Saturday that a task force made up of students, faculty and staff will be investigating the incident, and will report back to her in 30 days. This investigation should be more immediate.

We, The California Aggie editorial board, support the student protesters, and hope the university rights these wrongs immediately.

I feel insulted, I feel betrayed, I feel horrified and, quite frankly, I feel more unsafe on campus than I have ever felt. Yet, after being part of the protest outside the press conference Saturday, I feel impressed by the eloquence of my fellow students.

Like so many others, I’d assumed that violence toward protesters was something that only happened in New York or Oakland, not in Davis where there are more onlookers than demonstrators. If someone told me that our campus police would pepper spray and attack our students for expressing their right to free speech, I would not have believed them.

Though the actions of our chancellor and the UC Davis Police Department disappoint me, the united, eloquent and democratic response of students to the incident reaffirms my faith in the quality of this campus.

On Saturday, those of us outraged by the pepper spraying gathered outside Surge II to send a message to our chancellor. We stood to say that we have a right to our education, our opinions and, most importantly, to our safety.

To say the start of the protest was chaotic would be an understatement, but in all the noise and confusion, several students came forward to lead us. They all had ties to the pepper spray incident, one having been pepper sprayed herself, the other having watched his friends be attacked and arrested.

Their stories and pain were enough to move me to tears.

Wanting to ensure that anyone who wanted to hear or be heard could, we developed a democratic system of speaking and voting. After agreeing to keep the protest non-violent and respectful, someone suggested that we make a human pathway through which Chancellor Katehi could leave her press conference.

With a unanimous show of thumbs up, we approved the suggestion, wanting a chance to let our chancellor see our indignation and sadness. Without hesitation, the hundreds of us standing outside Surge II moved to make a channel. Linking arms with friends and strangers, I felt a sense of community and purpose greater than I’ve ever felt before.

Then the waiting game began as the chancellor refused to leave the building. Unfortunately for her, we were determined to be heard and willing to ignore the cold and the lure of a relaxing Saturday night to out-wait her.

After two hours, people dropped off dry Top Ramen for us, and another protester also arranged a collection for pizza money, and eventually we got enough food to feed everyone present. It was a blessing since, like me, a lot of protesters had not eaten in a long time, since no one had expected the press conference.

Those of us who had smartphones Facebooked, tweeted and streamed our stories out to the world, utilizing the only advantage we have as young tech savvy people. We were dumbfounded to hear that the story of our protest had reached CNN, Yahoo and Google. The press had come, we’d gone viral and our voice had finally been heard.

Despite the world watching, it took an interfaith minister, who was not previously involved with the protest, to get the chancellor to listen and finally begin to compromise with us.

We requested that she walk by us and look us in the eye, hoping for a semblance of accountability from her. She requested that we move to one side, sit down and allow her car to be driven to the street.

Eager to enter into the dialogue, we complied.

After three hours of waiting patiently in the cold, the few hundred of us present sat side-by-side, linking arms to show solidarity with the pepper sprayed protesters.

Our silence was louder than our chants had been, as a line of us, stretching from Surge II all the way to the Science Lecture hall, watched as Chancellor Katehi walked to her SUV and drove away safely.

We were respectful, we were peaceful and above all, we were successful.

It was an empowering and cathartic experience to be with others as hurt as I was. To me, the response of our students reaffirmed the incredible compassion and intelligence of this community.

So now, I call on all of you to stand for what you believe in. Or sit for it, you choose.

KATE ZARRELLA would like to hear what you would be willing to sit down for at kazarrella@ucdavis.edu.

It’s hard for me to imagine just exactly how bad it is to get a face-full of pepper spray. What’s even more difficult for me to understand is how it might have felt to sit on the ground with my arms entwined in a show of peaceful solidarity and be subjected to what has become the catchphrase of our time, “Police Brutality.”

The simple yet glaring idiom has come to signify so much, has come to represent an amalgamation of so many separate incidents that to use it now makes each seem connected to a collective whole.

There’s a difference here between other instances of “police brutality” and the one enacted on Friday on our Quad. Most of the incidents we think of when we hear the phrase involve individualized action. That is, instead of a battalion of police officers responding to a non-violent protest, they involve an officer, or sometimes two, taking liberties with their power for supremacy in a momentary circumstance. It seems important not to confuse the two.

On one side is an officer clearly outside the law, such as when a police officer shot an unarmed man at BART a few years ago. On the other is one well within it, well within what he was expected to do. Which, somehow, doesn’t feel comforting. Where the isolated officer in the BART station was acting as a separate, unconnected agent of his own volition, the officer on Friday was acting on behalf of another.

I’ve never stood before a line of seated, peaceful protesters and had to decide whether or not to drench them in pepper spray, so I can’t really empathize with the man. But, in this instance, where empathy might usually be a positive thing, I’m glad I can’t. More concerning than how he and his fellow officers reacted to the crowd of protesters is the fact they were involved with reacting to them at all.

The protesting students were advised with a written warning to remove their tents, people have argued. But, logically speaking, why would the demonstrators, who are protesting the very system that ordered them to disband, comply? When has silent compliance gained the oppressed change? Why, with the throng of police officers before them, equipped with rubber bullets, tear gas, batons and pepper spray, “riot gear” as it is called, would the protesters concede to the authority seeking to abolish their efforts and quell their collective voice?

Why — and perhaps this is a better question — were the police ever summoned to disband a collection of peaceful student protesters? Who made this call, this decision, to enact this violence on this campus?

The answer, which has been widely circulated, is our chancellor. The head of our campus, our academic lives, the individual in power because of the money we give in exchange for our education, which is, written or otherwise, a human right.

We as the student body are the ones paying for her authority, we are the ones affording her the privilege of overseeing our university and our campus and our academic lives. We are the ones leaving college the most indebted generation ever, and are doing so while her salary increases as tuition affordability decreases.

Indirectly or otherwise, as the head of our university, to whom we all pay thousands of dollars a quarter, we are funding her leadership, her position, and, what’s more, her decision to enact violence against us.

We must ask ourselves now, is the money we are paying for our education worth it? Maybe that seems like an easy question. But, is it so easy that the decision to protest comes immediately to all of us?

I would imagine the protesters from Friday, our colleagues, our instructors, our peers, our friends — our chemical-burned, beaten friends would say, without faltering, without hesitating and without resignation, yes.

EVAN WHITE can be reached at emwhite@ucdavis.edu.

The California Aggie would like to express thanks to all of the students and community members who commented on and directly addressed disappointment and upset over the column “Jungle Fever,” which ran in The California Aggie last Tuesday.

It is important that newspapers be considered a place for self-expression and a catalyst for facilitating discussion on important issues, such as cultural misconceptions and racism.

To further ensure that this is done in a sensitive and constructive manner, staff of The California Aggie will be participating in diversity training. We would like to encourage and support all members of the campus community in increasing awareness of cultural diversity on campus.

We would like to continue discussions with the Black Student Union and any other groups on campus that feel their needs as a community have not been met by their campus newspaper. Without this input, we would not be able to improve as a newspaper and as individuals.

The California Aggie, like all things at UC Davis, is an educational experience for readers and staff alike. We encourage our fellow students to apply for columnist or reporting positions and help shape The Aggie into what they would like to see.