The encampment is anti-breakfast, and for this reason, we need to get rid of it!
During our April issue last year, Stranded was sent a letter calling for us to publicly endorse the end of the People’s Circle for Palestine. Usually, we’d just throw something like that out, but it made our editor laugh, so who would we be not to publish it now?
Dear Stranded,
I am writing to you as the most prestigious and serious columnist in all of the papers at the University of Toronto to ask for your support in my call for an end to the People’s Circle for Palestine. Before you ask, no, it’s not that I don’t want attention brought to the cause; it’s just that for me, being able to eat breakfast on the grass is more important.
When I started at UofT last year, I was so worried about everything: that I wouldn’t like residence, that my professors would hate me for all of my independent research and fact-checking, and that I wouldn’t make any friends. But all of that changed when I feasted my eyes on the majesty of Front Campus. Between its beautiful green spaces and underground parking lot, I knew I had found my place. Here is where I would spend my time in university playing frisbee and hacky-sack and sitting in a circle with my super-diverse friend group, just like in the advertisements. And so it was. I had three lectures in Convocation Hall this year, but knowing that the beautiful, beautiful Front Campus was out there would be too much to bear for me. I would sneak out to lay on the grass and soak up the majesty of the undergrad experience. I ate breakfast on the grass. I took boys on dates to the grass. I even started bringing my own scissors to trim blades of grass if I felt they were getting above the regulation one and a quarter inches mandated in the university’s maintenance handbook. Did this annoy some people? Yes. Did Campus Police appreciate it? I don’t think so. But still! It helped UofT feel like home for me, so that’s what counts.
And when the offensive in Gaza renewed, I was so sad to see what happened. So many terrible things happening on both sides. But hey! What can anybody do? We’re in Canada. It’s not like it’s our fight. I understand wanting to help, but the Circle…they are taking things too far. When they set up shop and put tents on the beautifully preserved, fenced grass, I had to stifle sobs in MAT137. My happy place had been disturbed. I might never taste food on the grass again. I am too scared to try and get past the fence, leaving me Front Campus-less, wandering the other green spaces around UofT. I tried Vic’s quad. Too red. I went to St. Mike’s. The weird metal-spike things freaked me out. I’m lost now, and I know I’m not alone.
This is why I am positively begging The Strand to publish my letter, no, my plea, to the university administration. We, The People, need the grass back. It’s the most important issue of our time: don’t be caught on the sidelines!