Protesters at the University of California Berkeley shut down a bridge, preventing white people from crossing it. The protesters then posted an “eviction notice” on a campus building, and finally paraded through the student union and the campus entrance, disrupting students who were trying to study and blocking traffic in a central intersection.
A group of about 100 students united to block one side of a bridge, chanting, “Go around! Go around!” to any white people in the area. One black protester told a white student trying to cross, “I’m telling you, this isn’t about you. This is about whiteness, this is not about you. We don’t care about you.”
This new “safe space” segregation forced white students to go around the bridge, crossing Strawberry Creek below it.
Members of the University of California Police Department (UCPD) gathered to provide safety, and they gave helpful directions to white people who were physically prevented from crossing the bridge.
A lead protester shouted profanities at UCPD, even as the police had gathered to guarantee her safety. “Berkeley, why the f**k do you let UCPD do what they want with our bodies?” the protester belted, perhaps referring to the Black Lives Matter claims that police abuse people of color. “I’m talking to you, UCPD, I don’t give a f**k about you!”
Next Page: Eviction Notice!
YouTube screenshot of a protester placing an “Eviction Notice” sign on a building on the UC-Berkeley campus.
After a long period of blocking the bridge, the protesters moved on to the student store, which they blockaded. One of the students climbed up on the building and posted an “eviction notice,” which claimed that the students of UC Berkeley had the authority to shut down the building and to occupy it themselves. Here are some snippets:
You are hereby notified by the students of the University of California, Berkeley to vacate the premises immediately. University administration wrongly allocated this two-story facility to a third-party corporation, keeping in line with its intensifying legacy of prioritizing financial profit over student needs.
We demand, instead, that the university facilitate the expansion of the bridges and QARC (Queer Alliance Resource Center) spaces into this two-story facility … These spaces have been chosen by students based on the need for visibility, accessibility, and adequacy of size … The work that these student-run spaces to produce and recruit students of color and provide support for the LGBTQIIA+ student community is invaluable and must be affirmed by the university.
If you fail to vacate immediately, community action will continue to escalate with the goal of eliminating any revenue generation. This space exclusion is one step in an ongoing process to remedy the historical devaluation of students of color and LGBTQIA+ students.
This was not an official document, but the protesters deemed themselves worthy of making such demands, despite their inability to decide whether the ever-expanding alphabet soup of the LGBT movement required one or two Is.
Next Page: Protesters disrupting studying, blocking an intersection.
YouTube screenshot of protesters disrupting studying at UC-Berkeley.
Following this blockade, the protesters chanted “Students over profit!” as they marched through the student union, where students were trying to study.
“The protesters are causing a ruckus, disrupting the people who are trying to study,” one student complained. He described them as “being quite childish,” and added, “I agree with their right to protest, but disrupting the peace of others is not OK.”
But the demonstration did not end with disrupting students’ ability to study. The angry crowd then moved to the front of the campus, marching in a circle to block the intersection of Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue.
YouTube Screenshot of protesters closing down an intersection at the entrance to the UC-Berkeley campus.
Naturally, the protesters might have a few legitimate concerns. Some LGBT people and non-white people are indeed victimized, and that is worth protesting about. But you don’t protest racism and prejudice by wielding racism and prejudice. These actions can only be described as a form of segregation — and their calling for specific spaces for students of color and LGBT students is a demand for official segregation.
Every college’s public areas — student unions, classrooms, buildings, and especially bridges — should be safe spaces for all students, even (SHOCKER!) white students.
While this protest did not involve physically attacking anyone, it was nevertheless violent and dangerous. The overt racism of closing off a major thoroughfare to white people is stunning, as is the temerity of posting an “eviction notice” on behalf of the student population. Such protesters are so sure of themselves that they are willing to take the law into their own hands.
Furthermore, the blocking of public streets is indeed dangerous, as PJ Media’s own Glenn Reynolds explained. “Sorry, blocking the interstate is dangerous, and trapping people in their cars and surrounding them is a threat,” Reynolds wrote about the protest in Charlotte, North Carolina. Blocking a key intersection is not the same as blocking a highway, but it can produce similar effects. People end up trapped in their cars, as protesters chant right in front of them.
Nevertheless, the racism and the “eviction notice” really stood out. By what authority do these students think they can force the university to surrender a building to them? Indeed, have they not just undercut their own arguments for “diversity” by shutting down a bridge to white people? This moral narcissism is truly beyond the pale, and it should terrify Americans who have to live with the people graduating colleges today.
If UC-Berkeley caves to these demands, what message will that send? That an openly racist protest movement can dictate real estate decisions to a university, all while impeding the learning process which universities exist to enable. What kind of student wants to go to a school where that is the norm? If Berkeley caves, I would encourage you to get your degree somewhere else.
Watch the video on the next page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R6dzZdceT4
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