518
MARK
J.
MIRSKY
cooperate in the clear and deliberate scrutiny of Southern Senators
into New York City's racial problems.
Rising to the podium for my maiden speech, a veteran actor,
myself, a member of Equity, I found my voice shaking uncontrollably,
anger, rage, wagging my tongue. I shouted, held back tears of emotion,
my words bubbling on about our responsibility, educational reform,
too
long, etc., and sat down not sure what had happened, to mild applause.
Thereafter I was stamped as a left-leaning liberal although my
sarcastic remarks in the back of the Senate must have made me suspect
to several bearded colleagues. I must confess that I almost always agreed
with the conservative position.
It
seemed to me crazy to
turn
City
College willy-nilly into a Junior College.
It
was bad enough already
but to introduce 60 or 50 percent disadvantaged students without any
real preparation for them would overwhelm what fragile standards
existed. Constitutionally however, in ,both senses, I was incapable of
voting against any radical proposal from the left. The style, imagination,
speech, of the Right was so woeful and second-rate that it was just
impossible to raise your hand and vote with them. They were boring
and no matter how silly my fellow left-wing Senators were, it was my
kind of silliness, my human sympathy was with them just as it was with
the Black students who alternately pleaded and ranted at us. It was clear
whom I loved, whom I had to vote for even
if
it should cost us a
College. Every night on the way back to East 13th Street, my home,
another professor from the English Department and I would berate the
nincompoop actions of our friends; the next day, we would support
them, nay we would rise, shaking with pale anger to defend them, the
cause greater than ourselves.
We were a whole college of fools. At first, a spirit of rational irony
prevailed. The seizing of the City College gates, the lockout on the
South Campus, the closing of the school, all borrowed the holiday
air
of an April vacation, a lark, just a school holiday. I had come creeping
down the sidewalk along the South Campus after my first Senate meet·
ing toward the main gate, unable to resist a peek. There were several
of my students, Black, just coming out by coincidence and I waved
timidly, as if to signal, if you don't want to know me, it's all right I
got a big hello, however, and exchanging grins, we began to walk
along discussing the occupation. There were several points of view.
Some felt that the whole occupation was a mistake, that Gallagher
should have called the police in immediately, now that it was a fact
however they felt duty bound to support it. There was a lot of cynical
laughing at some of the goings-on and even among those who supported
the
seizing I sensed a good-humored perspective on the situation.
