I became a Bear circa five weeks ago when I transferred to UC Berkeley in the spring of 2026. As someone who can\u2019t get enough of the eclectic and dynamic \u201ctransition\u201d experience, I gave UC Berkeley an open-minded first consideration, with wandering eyes and the most attentive ears. What I heard during Golden Bear Orientation was bright, sparkly and refreshingly conscientious: They issued a very elegant statement of \u201cland acknowledgement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cosmopolitan baddies I was grouped with spoke multiple languages, came from multiple different experiences and even shared my love for a good gag. We drew into a huddle with Sather Gate behind us, posing for our very own college-brochure selfie: \u201cSay DEI!\u201d<\/p>\n
The multicultural friend group, the transfer and the tr—y are often deployed by campus to neutralize allegations of exclusion: I understand perfectly. It doesn\u2019t mean that colonial acquiescence is a precondition for university involvement! Just because I\u2019m keen on studying with the \u201cbest and the brightest\u201d does not mean I\u2019m colluding with the master!<\/p>\n
Hidden away from a world of empty platitudes and tight smiles, under the duvet cover, asbestos ceiling and the shroud of night, the sort of fresh-off-the-boat transgender transfer starts tossing and turning in her sleep. \u201cAm I selling out?\u201d \u201cIs my school pimping me out for social, cultural and capital capital?\u201d \u201cDo I live in a w—-house?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019d have to be blind not to see the cracks \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2026in my capacity for narrative edification, for example. The Muwekma Ohlone land, on which UC Berkeley erected the phallic Campanile, was wrested by the US in an unjust, coercive and greedy \u2014 simply put, a colonial \u2014 fashion.<\/p>\n
It would have been swell to buy into the reconciliation story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all broke bread on Thanksgiving Day!\u201d \u201cPredatory settler? I barely know her!\u201d<\/p>\n
But UC Berkeley does not seem interested in dis-entrenching itself as a colonial enterprise. And neither am I interested in turning a blind eye.<\/p>\n
I was less than delighted to learn that Cal instrumentalized the transfer student towards empire-building.<\/p>\n
Anchor House, a $300 million monster of an edifice, was donated to the school by the Helen Diller Family Foundation in the name of \u201ctransfer pride.\u201d Paving the way for a transfer-spangled banner to wave, they razed the rent-controlled property 1921 Walnut Street to the ground and displaced longtime tenants.<\/p>\n
Besides rampaging through the East Bay, subsuming affordable housing complexes and fighting rent-control policies, the Diller Foundation also donated to the Central Fund for Israel with instructions on supporting Canary Mission, an online group that enthusiastically doxxes students and professors whom the organization claims \u201cpromote hatred against the USA, Israel andJews.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Gibson, a campus spokesperson, shared in a 2024 statement that dedicating UC Berkeley\u2019s \u201cbiggest, nicest, newest building to transfers signifies the importance of this population that sometimes feel like an afterthought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibson\u2019s next statement that transfers are \u201cfirst and foremost the priority of this building\u201d feels like a product of campus\u2019s public relations priorities rather than aspirations for transformation.<\/p>\n
The bid for transfer upliftment reminds me of a picture: an IDF soldier posing on land flattened by airstrikes, holding a pride flag and pronouncing the occupation a crusade \u201cin the name of love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the government is addressing LGBTQ-friendly domestic audiences in Israel or globally, then it whips out this pink-washing discourse in trying to portray Israel as a gay haven,\u201d said Sa\u2019ed Atshan, author of \u201cQueer Palestine and the Empire of Critique,\u201d in a conversation with The Guardian.<\/p>\n
Pinkwashing aptly describes UC Berkeley\u2019s rationalization of Anchor House\u2019s development, which took place over the remains of 1921 Walnut St.<\/p>\n
Paul Wallace, a longtime tenant at 1921 Walnut St. and an activist in the group Save 1921 Walnut activist, expressed to Berkeleyside that he felt then-Mayor Jesse Arregu\u00edn had \u201csold them out\u201d and had done a \u201c180-degree turn, from unanimous council support for maintaining the eight rent-controlled units to accepting $920,000 from UC,\u201d in favor of demolishing the building. According to Berkeleyside, some tenants had lived there for 25 years and one person was a member of their family\u2019s third generation to inhabit the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The idea of Anchor House titillated me when it first fell on my ears, as if it was screaming, \u201cIt\u2019s for the transfer community! Anchor should be at the top of your list!\u201d After looking over the approximated cost of living in that brutalist box, devoid of charm but replete with exercise balls and elevator music (call me a bitter Luddite, I couldn\u2019t care less), I realized the \u201ctransfer community\u201d is a commodity I have to throw money at. In decimating the long-term, real community that called 1921 Walnut St. home, campus lacerated Berkeley society and then stuck a pimple patch on it to clot the blood river.<\/p>\n
Israel \u201cpinkwashes\u201d the genocide by pretending to care for the gays. UC Berkeley pinkwashes the colonization it reproduces by performing concern for transfers. UC Berkeley benefits from the Diller Foundation\u2019s generosity and is therefore Canary Mission\u2019s second cousin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If UC Berkeley, the wokest campus in the University of California nexus, and the progressive then-mayor Arregu\u00edn are also selling themselves and their constituents out, are we not just one big fat brothel? A beautiful one, without a doubt \u2014 with melanated, polylingual and eloquent metrosexuals. But a brothel nonetheless?<\/p>\n
It certainly feels like a place where we \u2014 our land, bodies and integrity \u2014 are for sale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I became a Bear circa five weeks ago when I transferred to UC Berkeley in the spring of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[87185,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-184704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-cis_to_sis","9":"tag-oakland","10":"tag-oakland-headlines","11":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}