The Red Scare of 2016

By Natalie Silver

I expected my coherence this Cal Day to come with reward, for the karmic cycle usually recognizes sacrifice. And it did. But more so than the tan, or the paycheck, or the lack of 5 p.m. hangover, the greatest reward I was given was meticulous observation, which I utilized to brilliantly diagnose the Red Scare of 2016.

While manning an information tent and assisting the masses flooding onto this campus, I quietly observed the behavior of our visitors, and took note of whether they were truly appreciating the show that everyone at this school was prepared to put on.

The physical open access to this school was enhanced by student demonstration of life at Cal, with all of the students applying our long-cultivated intensity and mastery of the grind to publicly flaunting the glory of this school.

The fraternities nobly undertook the righteous task of proving to the public that we can, with enough mental preparation and enough eyes on deck, satisfy Part Two of that “work hard, play hard” motto we’ve got going, while a mob of our other students attending the parties volunteered to showboat their ability to “rage.” Our world-class athletic teams put on shows worthy of Lil B’s attendance, our student groups entertained, advocated and informed, and some of our problems were even voiced in protest.

Cal Day. Zero Dollars for admission. Hundreds of events. Lectures. Tours. Student Groups. Entertainment. Advising. Free and open access to the number one public university in the entire world. 

We offered you all this, and you only had one job.

You. Had. One. Job.

And 77 of you failed.

77 of you, according to my tally—which occurred in the span of a two-hour shift working an information booth—wore red.

And I don’t mean “wore red” metaphorically; no, I’m not including those of us who spent our Cal Day coding in the library, or those of us who golf clapped at the frat parties and balloons and magic shows on the way to CorePower yoga, or especially those of us who blew off Cal Day to go to Coachella (who, by the way, might return and say that they’ve never had more fun in their lives. If they do this, just think about whyyyy they might have felt so ecstatic before believing that seeing the Guns n’ Roses reunion changed their life). 

No—I mean literally. During my shift, I kept track and I tallied 77 red shirts walking on Cal turf in two hours. Only four of them were Stanford shirts, so that means 73 of you either truly did not understand your crime or were executing the most passive aggressive fuck you since Caitlyn Jenner spelled it with a C.

I’m going to save myself some grief and assume it was the former. Luckily for everyone I am the queen of the information booth, here with an uninhibited breakdown of why this behavior cannot be tolerated…

To the Cal alum tiger mom, whom I overheard ask her 7(ish)-year-old daughter if she would prefer the lecture on “Genes, Networks and the Immune System” or one on “The Next Syria: Avoiding a Humanitarian Crisis in the Sahel”:

Noooo no no no no no no no no.

One word: Oskiland.

You may be a Golden Bear, but lady—yesterday you were wearing red.  

To the man in the Dodgers hat and pinkish shirt who turned around and said “no” to me after I said “Go Bears” to punctuate my spiel about where VLSB is.

If you truly have the unfortunate curse of Stanford affiliation, loyalty, or most likely, obligatory sympathy, for some tragic reason, I appreciate the recognition of the rivalry, but sir—you have got to execute with more savagery.

If Stanford had enough to offer to justify having their own “day,” you know that Cal fans would be decked out in everything from “FUSU” shirts to “My maid went to Stanford” pins.

*By the way, T-Shirt Orgy: Please bring back the blue and gold ‘STANFUCK’ shirts. They will sell, you’re welcome. *

Dodgers brother—I embrace our rivalry, but you’ve got to have the balls to tell the whole damn world with your clothing, and not just me.

To the sweet, yet lost mother of that really cute toddler with the blonde curls who answered the obviously rhetorical “Are you going to go to Cal?” question I had directed at her adorable daughter with “Yes! Unless she gets into an Ivy League school!”:

“Yeah, so to find what you’re looking for you’re going to turn around and head west until you hit a street called Shattuck, find the BART station, buy a ticket and get on a train, take the Millbrae line to the end and transfer to CalTrain, and then get off in Palo Alto!”

Stanford thinks they’re Ivy so your insult might flatter them.

To the self-dubbed artists who told me that the weird spherical sculpture on Oxford and Center is trash. Okay, even though no one knows what the hell it is, there are more important things to channel our negativity towards, like…I don’t know? The colors you chose to wear today?

Finally, to the two parents hovering over their newly-admitted son with more intensity than a football player hoverboarding straight into 206 Dwinelle:

No, you cannot directly enter the Haas School of Business as a freshman; yes, you will be okay if your son does not ultimately get into Haas; oh, and by the way, please know that we call them ‘Haasholes’ here.

When reflecting on this Cal Day I’m going to remember being stuck in a tent for hours and keeping a tally. My shift ended after I tallied 77, at which point I stopped counting. But unfortunately, there were many more of them out there.

On normal days at Cal, red shirts typically only refer to a portion of our elite athletes or are an offhand, semi-misunderstood reference to students behind the Bernie Revolution.

Otherwise it’s treason.