A few comments,

1) My impression of James' article on the different connotations with tents here in Santa Cruz/West Coast and with tents at Rutgers was that it wasn't primarily an issue of racial differences, rather the West Coast has a long history of various tent establishments, such as the communes in the 60's, etc. that the East Coast did not have as much of. So that here at UCSC, the establishment of tents had a different cultural association. James also mentioned that the historical context for these various cultures involved in previous tent efforts shows us that they were predominately white.

I know that there was also a complaint by a student from the Student Association of Native American Indians (SANAI) on campus, complaining that the tent images used on the flyers were offensive.

2) In response to Robert Norse's comments that "a small group of negotiators (reportedly from Students Against War) arranged a deal in violation of the previously arrived at consensus." There's a few important points that need to be made.

* There were NO Tent U. organizers delegated by the group to talk with the administration. Almost all Tent U people had either been arrested or in lock down. The few Tent U people available for negotiations were visibly traumatized and not given the authority to negotiate anyways.

* A few seasoned Students Against War organizers who were present throughout the day were watching the actions unfold on Monday night. They found 1-2 Tent U. people milling around and spoke with them about talking with the admin. The Tent U. students agreed with the SAW students' suggestion. Following that, the SAW students spoke with UCSC's administration, only representing their personal beliefs, not Tent U., and said that the only way the drama would ever end is if the police left. They made no official deal, rather made a suggestion. Admin took this suggestion, called the police off, freeing some of the Tent U. primary organizers from the lock-down, who then proceeded to negotiate with the admin. The admin claimed they made a deal with the SAW students - there was no deal made - rather it was a suggestion that the admin decided to take. Tent U. organizers stated, at the time, that they appreciated the SAW students' help. They then took things from there and made an agreement to allow individuals to remain at the base of campus. This agreement was a SUCCESS for Tent U. in that they were able to keep some students at the base when the admin were initially fiercly opposed to it.

We need to be realistic here. Yeah - Tent University decided, prior to the police action, that they wanted everyone to stick it out at the base of campus. But once the police had been brutalizing students for hours, there was no opportunity to have a 'direct democracy' session and have everyone make a decision on what they wanted to do. During the action, Tent U. had no democratically appointed reps to speak with the administrators. They had NO WAY to do anything. The actions that the few SAW students took in giving suggestions to the administration, was an act of solidarity that the Tent U. organizers supported both before and after the conversations took place. They helped to give Tent U. a success - having the police called off - a victorious image.

Here's a question - if the cops started teargassin' people and everyone ran away from the site of Tent U. on Monday night - would there be people jabberin' about how this was 'in violation' of the previous decision made by the group? In times of direct action it is very important to have democratically elected negotiators and well-planned forms of structure to make decisions. If this is not done, things can become undemocratic and at times, problemmatic.