BALLARO: Keep New Brunswick in Rutgers, New Brunswick
It is hard to talk national when you see local falling apart.
I heard so much about remote learning but I wondered if we could make a remote community. While highly effective in practice, social distancing is awful in titular conception — what a depressing thought that we must distance our social ties. “Social distancing” is a misnomer at best.
What we actually are practicing is physical distance. Socially distancing, in terms of severing ties with our interpersonal relationships, is not an option. Social connections are our true salvation and technology is the vehicle to transport us there. In a way, we redefine the unspoken social contract and step forward into the scary wide-open new.
Unfortunately, many are gated from this lifesaving social technology due to problems of injustice and poverty. Many still are not afforded the luxury to work from home and are forced into underpaying jobs where they must endanger their lives everyday.
In another version of this article, I could have given it a really clickbait title like “The Problem With Social Distancing,” but I had bigger fish to fry.
In other news, new semester, new column.
Formerly, this column was named “Thoughts from the LX,” but that became awkwardly dated by March with the closure of campuses. There are first-years now who have not experienced sitting in a puddle of air conditioner fluid on an LX bus and maybe they will not even by the time they graduate.
I also found out the name was not as original or as novel as I had thought when I came up with the title late August last year because I was actually the second column with “Thoughts From the,” in the title.
“‘Round About Town” was a column in the New Brunswick Daily Home written by the late Frank M. Deiner Sr. It was a column with a simple premise, following the lives of the inhabitants of New Brunswick. In a way, it was a prototypical “Humans of New York” project, or rather “Humans of New Brunswick," focusing on individual snapshots of humanity “'round about town." Among many other things, Deiner Sr. had been a political reporter and columnist for 58 years at the Home News Tribune until his death in 1971.
In honor of Deiner’s advocacy for the Route 18 extension that played a key role in the modern redevelopment of New Brunswick, a park built hanging over Route 18 was named after him.
While we are still unpacking the ramifications of what this redevelopment means, both positive and negative, the contributions made by Deiner Sr. and his peers were undeniable in shaping the landscape of New Brunswick we know today.
My first article ever was about an investigation I did into the origins of a small run-down park located on the College Avenue campus located above Route 18, Frank Deiner Park. Eventually, I discovered that what had seemed a small notable park was actually rooted in a complex socio-political history concerning Johnson & Johnson and DEVCO’s relation to the city of New Brunswick.
When I moved to Rutgers in New Brunswick for my first-year, I felt like a stranger in a strange place. When I took the time to learn about New Brunswick, I came to appreciate it. When I marched in the streets of New Brunswick with its people, I knew it was the place I was supposed to be. And now, as I sit writing in my childhood house in the suburbs, I once again feel like a stranger in a strange place.
While I knew my first year I would not be home for my senior year at Rutgers, I did not know which home I had in mind.
So now, in honor of Deiner Sr. and his very special riverside park, I have decided to adopt the name of his old column. While I do not think I will quite be able to live up to his journalistic pedigree, I hope that I can continue his tradition of fostering community.
What does community mean? What does it look like? Really, what does community look like now in this moment of time?
I ask that not only to myself, but also to you, the reader, wherever you might be.
New Brunswick and Rutgers are one in the same. You cannot understand Rutgers without knowing the history of New Brunswick. Rutgers and its denizens could not function today without the work and sacrifices New Brunswick has put in over the years. It is our duty to protect New Brunswick and its people.
Above all: Keep New Brunswick in Rutgers—New Brunswick.
Anthony Ballaro is a School of Arts and Sciences senior majoring in classics and public health. His column, "'Round About Town," runs on alternate Thursdays.
*Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
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