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.”
Great minds think alike, and so do David’s and mine—Sort of.
Oh, and along with my assessment of this scattering of posers being . . . some mere and forgettable scattering of posers, Norman and David and I are posting on Wednesday, the spasm of boring bits reportedly took place all the way back on last Friday, Norman’s report is the first I’ve learned of any of this, even with a regular look at the local news, and I Live Here . . . . . .
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.
That. So much that.
That. So much that.
I suppose it’s one of the benefits of academia’s dysfunction. It’s where you get to see leftist psychology naked, as it were. In all it’s glory.
Students at the University of California, Berkeley . . . .
According to The College Fix; Over 100 protesters from . . . .
According to . . . various sources . . . the number of the rest of the students was somewhere over thirty seven thousand back in, oh, 2015 . . .
So yes, the actual locally noticed news reports regarding U.C. Berkeley that have been making the headlines in the last few days is that the local frat types have been being just as useless . . .
. . . . They are getting into the news . . in a fashion, but.
One more time.
To be expelled and yet retain the college debt would be a harsh lesson. If only.
It has gone beyond talk.
Those who offer violence must receive it.
Next time it happens they must be removed and there is no need to be overly gentle about it.
And of course all non-science courses must be shut down all such Red Guards expelled and legally blackballed from ANY career whey they might be able to have mass influence. And their student debt surcharged 50 fold and aggressively collected for the rest of their lives.
The college leftist staff who have created the Red Guards lose their jobs on the spot san any compo and their pensions to be confiscated.
That should do it.
Half the problem is the weather is too good in California. Some sleet off the North Sea would get them all indoors and concentrate the minds.
Qui tacet consentire videtur.
The reason these bullies don’t get expelled is because the people in charge at their universities agree with them. Or at least, where the little creeps actually are themselves “students of color”, think anti-racism is more important than any other consideration. Anti-racism as defined by social studies departments of the past 60 years, I mean – not real anti-racism.
Did anybody else notice that, in the video, it looks like Asian students are walking around the gate with the white students. Am I right about that?
The reason these bullies don’t get expelled is because the people in charge at their universities agree with them.
See, for instance, this.
Anti-racism as defined by social studies departments of the past 60 years,
Social studies departments. I.e., part of the Clown Quarter.
The reason these bullies don’t get expelled is because the people in charge at their universities agree with them.
As is evident in the lack of reaction to protesters forming a human chain to block white students on their way to class at Berkeley: http://heatst.com/culture-wars/left-wing-berkeley-protesters-demand-spaces-of-color-harass-white-students-trying-to-pass/
So transgressive.
The poor dears apparently didn’t get enough segregated space on campus.
And that word you’re looking for is “expel.”
I rarely disagree with you, but that’s not the word at the forefront of my mind at the moment.
And I missed the fact that I was posting the link to a thread devoted to the very issue.
I should never post, or deal with SJWs, before my morning coffee.
We need a two-tier University system:
Tier 1 – where intelligent people go to learn actual stuff.
Tier 2 – where also-rans go to learn how to ‘protest’ for ‘Social justice’.
Just don’t tell them which is which and assign them according to suitability after interview. As a bonus, Tier 1 is free – paid for by Tier 2.
Problem would have been solved by the blues mobile.
Apparently, the protestors were unhappy about their Angry Studies Drum Circle – i.e., the Queer Alliance Resource Centre and Multicultural Resource Centre – being moved to a location that they feel is insufficiently glamorous. The issue, they say, is one of “visibility” and some imaginary right to occupy a space befitting their self-estimated importance, regardless of the cost and inconvenience to others. Indeed, the students claim that the failure to provide them with facilities of suitable commodiousness is “part of the structural racism of UC Berkeley.”
Well, it’s fair to say that the visibility of the Angry Studies Drum Circle, and the type of people it attracts, has been raised somewhat, though perhaps not in the way the students wished.
Who do you think is paying for Tier 2? Hint, it ain’t Tier 2. They don’t have any money.
A project occurs to me. Someone with time and resources could start compiling a publicly searchable database featuring each and every one of these ‘protestors’, from universities across the land, with names, mugshots, video clips, etc., so as to spare potential employers any future inconvenience. It would also help future students and their parents chose where to spend their money, and which universities to avoid.
It could be called DoNotEmploy.com
They don’t have any money.
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.
It could be called DoNotEmploy.com
Sounds like a blacklist, and blacklists are RAAACIST!
People are never happy. We fought for years to end segregation, now they want to be segregated again. I think we should follow the university’s example all over society. Segregated schools, neighbourhoods, maybe even restaurants and stores.
It’s interesting to watch the two types of body language from the activists, i.e. the ones who rush out to confront anyone who dares to try and pass.
Type 1. Wheedling, explaining, lots of passive-agressive hand gestures, usually escalating to sad head-shaking that someone is too unenlightened or racist to understand the obvious moral certainty of their cause, followed by stalking off.
Type 2. The Red Guard. Up on toes. In personal space without hesitation or preamble. Desperate for a fight (or to be punched). Absolute and utter certainty of freedom from retribution.
Anyone who’s ever seen film of Red Guard student trials in the 60’s, or African massacres will recognise Type 2. They are monsters.
Why aren’t some of these pansies booting the shit out of these assholes?
In the awful past, children were contracted into a life of indentured servitude, with no real education except in obedience.
See the difference?
It could be called DoNotEmploy.com
It exists and is called “reliable operatives.” Mr. Soros maintains it.
It’s interesting to watch the two types of body language from the activists
The silly led by the sinister.
Those who offer violence must receive it.
Next time it happens they must be removed and there is no need to be overly gentle about it.
Absolutely. I am worried that because the authorities will almost surely not do this, the door is left open for others. Should a motorcycle club decide to clear the bridge, things will get wet in a hurry. And the situation will only slide downhill nationally.
vindictive mediocrities <- that. It is - perhaps - some subconscious awareness of their own mediocrity that causes the vindictiveness. That they are at a university where people obviously much brighter than them are studying real subjects while they throw tantrums in the Angry Studies ballpool.
It is – perhaps – some subconscious awareness of their own mediocrity that causes the vindictiveness.
It’s certainly hard to see the ‘protestors’ as acting in good faith. The people in the video, the ones clearly delighting in their leverage and the rush of mob power, aren’t victims of cruel circumstance pushed to misbehave by diabolical forces. They’re just shitstains who get off on behaving obnoxiously.
Or are we to believe that it’s merely coincidental that their chosen form of protest – the protest they’d planned and talked about excitedly for days – entails harassment, thuggery and attempts to humiliate random people based solely on their skin colour? And what about disrupting other students’ attempts to study, or obstructing random drivers and passers-by at a public intersection? Or threatening to cripple someone’s business simply because the little warriors have decided that it’s on ‘their’ territory? Are we to believe these are obvious ways to raise issues and win public sympathy?
Because to me it looks a bit like a threat, an assertion of power. A testing of the waters.
For many of these protesters, this will be represent the pinnacle of their influence on humanity. I hope they felt empowered by this brattish display, as it’s all downhill from here.
Because to me it looks a bit like a threat, an assertion of power. A testing of the waters.
Yes, but note they never test where people will fight back, like blocking an intersection in East Oakland.
Stupidly entitled student behaviour is just one symptom of the malaise affecting our universities. Academic studies are becoming increasingly trivialised http://bit.ly/2b4XS56 and the Student Union is out of control: http://bit.ly/2cQt37l Apprenticeships looking pretty good, right now…
Yes, but note they never test where people will fight back
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. As illustrated repeatedly, and often quite vividly, during the Occupy saga of 2011. An example I’ve used before is this charming incident, in which a mob of Occupiers, most of whom were middle-class Clown Quarter students, found it amusing to trap a random disabled woman – in a wheelchair, with an assistance dog – and prevent her from getting home.
Because, you know, “social justice.”
These things always attract the same kinds of people in high concentrations…whose idea of power means opportunistically fucking someone over.
Yep, which is why I really like tkdkerry’s idea of a biker gang showing up. I’d pay good money to see what would happen if the Oakland Hell’s Angels just showed up on foot, nice and peacefully, and said they were going through. Even money says the crowd would part like the Red Sea, and expose them for the hypocritical posing snivelers they are.
“We need a two-tier University system:”
Nah – just build the B Ark and tell them it’s a Science! Expedition with free pot and many more opportunities for scolding and acting out. These idiots won’t have read the book.
For many of these protesters, this will be represent the pinnacle of their influence on humanity.
Ayup . . . as noted, if one is even going near Sather Gate, and if something is even going on at that moment, then bypassing Sather really is a piffle. . .
These make a nice cloud of sulfur dioxide. They’re meant to be ignited underground, but of course don’t have to be.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00GUQKPBM/ref=mp_s_a_1_2/165-2011833-1929408?ie=UTF8&qid=1477503912&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX280_SY350_QL65&keywords=gopher+smoke+bombs&dpPl=1&dpID=51wOzhMwmfL&ref=plSrch
I’m having difficulty getting my head round this demand for “spaces of colour”.
The grandparents/parents of some of those whinging ingrates would have been involved in the justified battle against state-enforced segregation. The black protesters in that protracted struggle were largely peaceable, despite the blatant taunting and violence they encountered. I wonder how they feel when they see their progeny not only trying to turn back the clock, but also mirroring the unpleasant behaviour that they had been on the receiving end of?
Then there’s the irony inherent in other whinging idiots’ demands for different (i.e. laxer) academic standards for “students of colour”. That was the validation trotted out by the die-hards to justify segregation: the “blacks” didn’t have the intellectual capacity. Today, we have activists/protesters apparently determined to prove that old canard.
It is in the nature of young people to reject the status quo. And, throughout the ages, their elders have always complained. Socrates said: “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter…” However, that youthful rebelliousness can bring about beneficial societal change. Would you want to go back to life as it was in your grandparents’ time, let alone that of Socrates?
That said, if I were one of the aforementioned grandparents/parents, I’d be banging my head against the wall right now….
they never test where people will fight back
My alma mater was famous for its engineering school – sufficiently so that the engineers were granted a lot of leeway for their frequent drunken parties, brawls and fresher initiations that strongly resembled Marine boot camp, but with more abuse. For some reason, there was a very high overlap between the engineering students and the university football team (the kind where large men smash into each other, not the poncy kind where there’s more violence in the stands than on the pitch).
Had they tried something like this during my undergrad years, the engineers would have sorted them out in short order. Sadly, after twenty years of identity politics and whining about STEM, even the engineers have been neutered.
…the engineers would have sorted them out in short order…
Indeed, someone just needs to go all Belushi on they asses.
Norman’s report is the first I’ve learned of any of this, even with a regular look at the local news, and I Live Here . . . . . .
—And only in the last couple of hours has the actual local media noticed that someone else had reported some footnote to some footnote back on Friday, with said footnote apparently not even continuing into into the evening, let alone the weekend . . . even the local report isn’t able to get more mileage than . . . lasted for about two hours before students moved the protest . . .
Dear Mr Thompson
Sounds like neo-apartheid is all the rage in some quarters.
@ Lisboeta | October 26, 2016 at 18:55
“…if I were one of the aforementioned grandparents/parents, I’d be banging my head against the wall right now….”
You’d be banging the wrong head.
DP
And only in the last couple of hours has the actual local media noticed…
From the comments in said media, though this may only resonate among some of us ‘Murkans approaching antediluvian status:
Heh.
Dear Mr Thompson
[ Runs comb through hair, hurriedly searches for a tie. ]
David, you are not the only one desperately trying to smarten up. What did I say that got me linked to “neo-apartheid is all the rage”?
It is – perhaps – some subconscious awareness of their own mediocrity that causes the vindictiveness.
IMHO, it’s not conscious but it’s also not subconscious. Rather, it’s denial so strong that even an obvious truth – e.g. he is a man, she is a woman – cannot be accepted, lest the narcissistic image be damaged.
They say that cognitive dissonance leads to unfocused anger. True. It ain’t going away, the narcissists are gonna focus it somewhere, and they choose those who most make them feel inferior; every time they look at you they’re reminded of what they are not.
“Desperate for a fight (or to be punched).”
I’d be glad to oblige them…
These make a nice cloud of sulfur dioxide.
Oh yeah. Remember those from my misspent youth. We once closed down a train line near Paris with a few of these. It was only a commuter line, though, so no big deal. It’s not like we shut down the TGV or anything. Still, we kept a low profile for a few weeks after that.
Ah, what fun we had.
a new Peak-Grauniad
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/26/selling-yoga-teachers-neocolonialism-british-indian-spiritual
Remember, kids: nothing says “I’m a super-hardcore social justice warrior” like stealing someone’s bake sale cookies.