BridgeUSA’s San José State chapter hosted another Jubilee Spectrum-style event this Tuesday night in the Student Union and this week's topic was a “Red vs. Blue event” that focused on four different subjects.
A Jubilee Spectrum event is based off of the show, “Jubilee”, that aims to provoke understanding, according to its website.
BridgeUSA is a non-profit organization that fights political division on campus, according to its website.
Climate change, the criminal justice system, U.S. healthcare and the Second Amendment were the topics of the night, according to the presentation.
Political science senior Sabrina Nabizada is the president and founder of BridgeSJSU and she said it is the spot for students to talk about political emotions in a healthy way.
“There aren't a lot of concrete ways for students to get involved politically, and I feel like a lot of that gets suppressed.” Nabizada said. “This offers a healthy outlet to discuss these sorts of issues in a productive manner.”
With over 20 attendees, Nabizada opened up the event with an ice breaker before getting into the main subjects to be discussed.
Chairs were divided into three sections with up to 10 seats each. The left side was for those who agree, the right side was for those who disagree and the middle section was for those who were neutral on the subject.
Director of outreach and applied math sophomore Margot Catrini led the conversation on the first topic, climate change.
Catrini ignited the conversation by showing a slide to the crowd and said, “Do corporations have a social responsibility to keep the environment clean?”
Then everyone went to their respective side of the room.
Current Bridge member and communications sophomore Samantha Sternstein said the climate change topics were her favorite of the night.
“I really loved talking about climate change because it's a really important topic to me,” Sternstein said.
Nabazida said Sternstein will be the next director of outreach and Catrini will be filling in as president upon her graduation this spring.
Strenstein said the importance of these events is so students have the platform to speak on political subjects.
“I think what intimidates people about politics is the argument and that there’s somebody on the other side waiting to attack,” Strenstein said. “With this, it's more of an open forum and people can say what they feel and it's all respected.”
When Catrini asked the group about whether or not California should abolish the death penalty people shot out of their seats and moved to either the left, middle or right to discuss with their new groups.
The three topics Catrini shared were about the death penalty, healthcare and accountability for parents who raised children that committed mass shootings.
A majority of the students in the room took the chance to share their opinion and thoughts on each of the discussion points.
“You do get a little bit of heated moments where people get passionate about what they're talking about but it's always respectful and at the end of the day we can all be friends afterwards,” said Joey Hyder, a senior majoring in sociology and a member of the outreach committee.
Hyder said BridgeSJSU has been learning from these events and finding new things they could try out.
He said he wants to work on doing more research and gaining more background information on these types of topics.
“I feel like it's hard if you don't know the exact data. but it's fun to entertain the theoretical,” Hyder said.
Hyder said he stumbled upon one of these meetings a year and a half ago and has been coming consistently ever since.
“I think it's valuable to assess your own point of view outside of any echo chambers where people already agree with you,” Hyder said. “Hearing some opposing points of view is always valuable to bring new ideas to your attention and help you understand the world better.
