Apathy, mistrust, complacency caused referendum to fail

It’s really a shame the health referendum failed, especially when so many students have complained about the inefficiency of the student health center. People say the service is poor, they are understaffed but yet they are not willing to pay the extra cost to bring it to standard. When are we as black people going to realize that if we want something better we have to pay for it? These problems are not going to fix themselves, nor will the funds magically generate from some supernatural source. You have to pay for what you want and that is the reality.
We often hear comparisons of Southern to LSU on how much better their facilities are, or their health services, or their parking. But we rarely hear about how much more money the students come out of pocket for than what we do here. They want it, so they pay for it.
Look at Lacumba, when the cat died students went up in arms. Everybody wanted a new cat but nobody wanted to pay for it so when it hit the ballot it failed miserably. Odd isn’t it?
Look at parking, we all know that’s a mess, not only here but at every university, but if there were to be a viable solution that would cause an increase in our parking fees would it pass? Or would a majority of students, who are probably a part of the majority complaining, vote it down because they don’t want to pay for it and because they are complacent, just not happy with the conditions?
I agree with most students, service at the health center is poor and outdated, but I also understand that if I want something better, I’m not going to get it for free. The fact is, Southern can’t afford to foot the bill, the university is already amid a budget crisis. And whether or not you know it, our fees increase without our knowledge nearly every year. Why not have increases that you know will ultimately benefit you?
Some say giving the health center more money would reward the incompetence of its staff. I disagree. If they are getting more funding and better pay, then the positions there become more competitive in the job market and those people there who are incompetent and lackadaisical, will actually have to work to keep their jobs because their positions will attract other qualified individuals who are actually willing to work for the money they earn.
If not, at this rate, no one is going to work there and actually work, for a meager salary, looking at it from a realistic perspective.
I understand we don’t want more fee increases, but if we don’t want more increases, apparently, we don’t want better services.
A great deal of students didn’t even vote but those are the kinds of apathetic attitudes that will inevitably lead to the destruction of our race. We get complacent or fill that an issue doesn’t directly impact us and we neglect it, throw it out and forget about the people who have been negatively impacted and that we could be next.
In this situation, I will say that apathy can only be blamed so much. The university must bear the brunt of the fault because when you have things in our student fees like an intramural sports complex that students have been paying for, for years but have yet to see, or an alumni house that seems to be a mere figment of our imagination, or all the other increases we have faced without our knowledge, naturally we become skeptical about investing more money into some proposed improvements we may never see. This was an important issue but now thanks to apathy, complacency, and a lack of trust when it comes to our institution and the money, it’s a dead one.