They Say It All Belongs To Them
But they don’t want to pay for any of it:
Students at the University of California, Berkeley held a violent protest on campus Friday to demand additional segregated “spaces of colour” for non-white students. A video of the protest shows demonstrators repeatedly heckling white passers-by, barring them entry to a key bridge on campus by forming a human chain while simultaneously allowing students of colour to pass unmolested. Time and again, white students and professors were denied entry to the bridge as they were surrounded by aggressive protesters shouting “go around!” At one point, the video shows a protester refusing to allow an older white man to cross the bridge, eventually directing him to cross by way of a creek that flows underneath the bridge.
Because what could be sweeter than forcing people deemed too pale to literally walk through dirt?
But why such high passion, you ask?
When protesters were asked about the motive for their demonstration, they refused to be recorded, leaving little to no explanation for the rationale behind such an aggressive protest.
If you can endure this five-minute video of the protesters being theatrical and unpleasant, you may discern the usual inchoate rumblings of oppression, and outrage at the unfairness of being expected to pay one’s bills as agreed in writing. Apparently, the entire campus and surrounding streets now belong to them, i.e., a tiny subset of leftwing students, which conveniently excuses all manner of exciting behaviour, including harassing other students, to whom the campus presumably doesn’t belong. There’s also some anti-capitalist fervour aimed at local businesses and the on-campus student store, the mere existence of which is deemed an affront to socialist piety, prompting threats of further disruption, escalating in vehemence, “with the goal of eliminating any revenue generation.”
Such kind and lovely creatures. Not narcissistic at all.
However, the heaviest, most pressing grievance appears to be this:
Protesters were angered because one of their “safe spaces” was relocated to the basement of a building where it had previously occupied the fifth floor.
If, being sane, that doesn’t sound like something that could credibly justify two hours of shouting, shoving and screaming, let alone the obstruction of traffic, both on campus and at a nearby public intersection, to say nothing of thuggish behaviour and blatantly racist harassment, then you may be missing the point. Which is, that these things allow vain, vindictive mediocrities to exert power over others. All while cloaked by the moral anonymity of the mob dynamic, which allows those so inclined to behave in antisocial ways and get away with stuff. Everything else is window dressing. Including the protestors’ claims that the failure to provide a “safe space” of suitable commodiousness, befitting their self-imagined importance, is “part of the structural racism of UC Berkeley.”
And that word you’re looking for is “expel.”
…pure neocolonialism…
I’ll see your neocolonialism, and raise you White People In Canoes.
…and to come full circle here is a review of Prof. Dean, “Great! University is supposed to be a place for progressive, critical thinking people to engage with progressive, critical ideas.”
“Missed by that much”. I imagine the clowns at Berkeley are equally myopic.
I’ll see your neocolonialism, and raise you White People In Canoes.
What’s dismaying (or darkly hilarious, depending on mood) is the realisation that large swathes of academia are staffed by people who are (a) intellectually quite feeble and (b) desperately conformist – anxious to be seen making whatever idiot noises are deemed modish by their equally feeble and needy peers.
Not so much radicals as the Hyacinth Buckets of the intellectual world.
“Absolutely a symbol of colonialism. It seems to me that this narrative we tell ourselves about the canoe about how canoeing makes us in touch with nature, how canoeing makes us in some way guiltless of the terrible things that the Canadian government and Canadians in general did to First Nations people.”
Resolved: People of Pallor will give up canoes. First Nations People will give up horses.
First Nations People will give up horses.
Also steel knives and hatchets, thundersticks, firewater, and Hudson Bay point blankets, especially the blankets.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/an-ex-professor-was-jailed-12-years-for-raping-a-man-crippled-by-cerebral-palsy-her-troubles-arent-over
Anna Stubblefield was a tenured professor of ethics
While it’s certainly pleasant to imagine a group of students defying the protesters and using self-defense to simply get to class, the fact of the matter is, the protesters know that not only do they face no repercussions for their behavior from the administration, but that the administration would undoubtedly expel any student of pallor who dared to protect himself from their assaults, presumably for being insufficiently sensitive to their imagined grievances and having the temerity to expect civilized behavior from students attending the flagship university of the State of California.
As for the question why parents continue to allow their children to be subjected to such things at great cost to them and their children, we must remember, many parents agree with the protests and believe they must do penance for the “crimes” of others. As for the rest, Berkeley has a certain cachet, and parents think their kid has a better chance to grab the golden ring by being there, so they figure abasing themselves before the new Maolings is worth it in the long term.
And, BTW, there’s a reason this crap happens at places like Berkeley and not some other satellite campus of the U of C. It makes news because it’s Berkeley. Recall the lunacy at Mizzou. It happened at the flagship university of the state, not at the University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL), a stand alone campus which is located less than a mile from Ferguson, Missouri, the locus of the events which caused the protests.
First Nations People will give up horses.
Which leads me to tell a story I think I’ve told before. Some years ago, my lovely spouse and I were taking in an exhibit of “Art of the American Plains Nations” at our local art museum. There we marveled at the intricate beadwork on clothing depicting horses and other aspects of the “Plains Culture,” including pipe-ax combos, etc.
While looking at the exhibits, I heard a very earnest mother explaining to her 10 year old how evil the white man was in “destroying” the native life. I couldn’t help myself. I casually remarked that the beads she was looking at undoubtedly were made in Europe and were obtained through trade for bison hides and beaver pelts and that the horses portrayed came into the hands of the Plains tribes solely because the Spanish were lousy at animal husbandry. It’s kind of fun pulling the progressive rug out from underneath someone in public.
Of course they do, how do you think they got there? These are not the progeny of the horny-handed sons of toil, they come from middle and upper-middle class families.
Perhaps at Berkley, yet given the diversification of elitist student recruitment perhaps not so much. A good number, and outside of the elite institutions I would hazard to say the majority, are there on student loans, grants, etc. Not their money.
Film all of them blocking you. Sue them for whatever torts they committed – if they touch you, they committed battery. If they threatened you, they committed assault. If they trapped you in any way, they committed false imprisonment. They interfered with your exercise of various constitutional rights under federal and state constitutions. Sue every one of them. If they default attach their assets so they can’t go to school anymore. Sue them, sue them, sue them, sue them, and sue them again. If they aren’t sued into behavior their parents will be terrified and cause them to behave. You have rights that are being violated by them. Take a page from their book and engage in active lawfare. Sue and sue again!
And if it happens on school property or with the actual or passive approval of the school, sue the school too, for allowing the students to violate you and your rights.
Film all of them blocking you. Sue them . . .
And Boalt Hall, btw, is also uphill past College Avenue and also rather distant from Sather Gate. And I could see an amusing possibility that some of the students there could be intrigued by a bit of pro bono internship practice . . . .
She also accused the canoers of cultural appropriation because they are primarily white men and have a privileged place in society.
How much trouble can Pierre Trudeau get in, retroactively?
The correct word is “canoeists”, by the way.
I propose a trade: white folks can continue to use canoes and First Nations can continue to use penicillin.
(I realize that the problem here comes not from First Nations but from a dumb-ass university professor)
(I realize that the problem here comes not from First Nations but from a dumb-ass university professor)
. . . and . . .
They Say It All Belongs To Them
But they don’t want to pay for any of it:
Students at the University of California, Berkeley held a . . . .
(I realize that the problem here comes not from First Nations but from a dumb-ass. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
—Oh, and earlier today I realized why the reports keep stating Over 100 protesters from . . . .
If someone is really bored, and watches that video a bunch of times to count unique idiots, I rather suspect that the actual number will be about one hundred fifteen, mebbe as high as one thirty five, and definitely no higher than that, or so, call the theoretical maximum number one fifty.
While again noting that the utterly contrasting number of students at Cal, as opposed to posturing idiots, is stated to be over thirty seven thousand, a rather trivial bit of Googlemancy left me utterly unsurprised to find out about Dunbar’s number . . .
These things always attract the same kinds of people in high concentrations, the same mix of vain and cowardly little pricks, low-level sociopaths, and people whose idea of power means opportunistically fucking someone over.
Another example.
Another example.
Yes, quite. You will, of course, find some vain and malicious people wherever a gathering is large enough. But “social justice” posturing seems to attract them in very high concentrations, more than chance alone would allow, and then gives license to the expression of that vanity and malice.
Using the threat of violence to stake out turf? How is this any different from street gang behavior?
Go ahead, give them the bridge. In a month, it will belong to gang drug dealers and prostitutes.
Another example.
Regarding the charming young Miss (?) in the yellow hat; Backpfeifengesicht: A face badly in need of a fist.
Meanwhile, Everyday Feminism:
Re this bridge thing, wasn’t something similar posted here a couple months ago, I think it was a Trump rally that protesters were blocking the entrance to? Can’t recall the specifics except for the image of a large group of SJW or similar at the top of some stairway entrance to an auditorium or stadium?
Can’t recall the specifics
Too busy to check at the moment, but I think it may have been a Milo event. That, or Ben Shapiro.
People of Pallor will give up canoes.
What if it’s an aluminum canoe?
What if it’s an aluminum canoe ?
Sorry, any canoe is cultural appropriation, as is a kayak. A plastic kayak is right out. A jon boat is unacceptable because “Jon” is a man’s name and thus represents patriarchy. A McKenzie River boat is unacceptable because they are named after the McKenzie River which is named after a fur trapper – enough said there.
The only boats acceptable for cis-white males are those used in the countries their ancestors came from before they arrived in Canada to rape, pillage, and commit genocide. As examples, men from Scandinavia can use longboats, those from England, either coracles or 100 gun ships-of-the-line, but only if they are made with sustainable wood native both to Canada and the respective native countries.
Because what could be sweeter than forcing people deemed too pale to literally walk through dirt?
Firing a paintball gun at the crybullies blocking the bridge.
Firing a paintball gun at the crybullies blocking the bridge.
Heh. The lady wins cake.
Everything else is window dressing. Including the protestors’ claims that the failure to provide a “safe space” of suitable commodiousness, befitting their self-imagined importance, is “part of the structural racism of UC Berkeley.”
Parenting 101: If you give in to tantrums you get more (and louder) tantrums.
In the good old days the Teamsters would have turned up and beaten the fucking crap out of them. End of ‘protest’ and any future bullshit they might be considering.
Parenting 101: If you give in to tantrums you get more (and louder) tantrums.
As someone who’s been roped in for quite a few hours of babysitting, I can testify. Which makes me wonder whether the university administrators are shockingly naïve, to the point of absurdity, or simply share the protestors’ fantasies and pretensions, again to the point of absurdity. Or maybe they’re just scared of these narcissistic delinquents, and worried that any attempt to enforce normal discipline – as outlined in their own literature and agreed to in writing by all students – will result in more protests, more disorder, even violence.
Whichever may be the case, it’s not a flattering picture.
We once closed down a train line near Paris with a few of these.
You caused disruption on a commuter train in Paris? Did you name your device CGT?
Rob: I recall a passage (if memory serves) in Hunter S Thompson’s “Hell’s Angels” about an attempt in the 60’s by Berkeley war protesters to ally with the Oakland Hell’s Angels and dockworkers, on the grounds that the groups were all alienated from society (or some similar rationale.)
It ended with one group having been well-thumped by the other group. One guess which was which.
Ah, yes…this from the comments section via R. Sherman…
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2016/05/elsewhere-202.html?cid=6a00d83451675669e201bb090a601f970d#comment-6a00d83451675669e201bb090a601f970d
As I asked on that post, why didn’t the people wishing to attend the event just push on through them? Were the police protecting the protesters? How is this any different than someone blocking my access to any public space, a sidewalk, a park, etc.? They should be charged with assault.
Notice this group a Berkeley seems a bit larger than the one from Sherman’s post of the Milo event. Odd thing, that.
Which makes me wonder whether the university administrators … simply share the protestors’ fantasies and pretensions
Oh David, you’re too polite.
Oh David, you’re too polite.
I promise I’ll work on it.
These idiots don’t seem to realise that their racial politics have managed to revive the idea of “white” ethnicity.
It logically follows that if black people must be separate from white people, then white nationalism is as valid an identity.
Of course, this relies upon accepting the premise of identity politics.
Sooner or later, they’re going to do something awful enough to provoke a violent reaction.
dumb-ass university professor
Congratulations, you win today’s tautology cometition. Please stop by headquarters to pick up your prize.