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from the whatever-happened-to-DEsegregation? dept.
The Washington Times reports a story about protesters on the UC Berkeley campus physically blocking white students from accessing a bridge while police stand by and watch:
Students at the University of California, Berkeley held a day of protest on Friday to demand the creation of additional “safe spaces” for transgender and nonwhite students, during which a human chain was formed on a main campus artery to prevent white students from getting to class.
The demonstrators were caught on video blocking Berkeley’s Sather Gate, holding large banners advocating the creation of physical spaces segregated by race and gender identity, including one that read “Fight 4 Spaces of Color.”
Protesters can be heard shouting “Go around!” to white students who attempt to go through the blockade, while students of color are greeted with calls of “Let him through!”
Students turned away by the mob are later shown filing through trees and ducking under branches in order to cross Strawberry Creek, which runs underneath the bridge.
The protests were a response to a Safe Space being moved from the fifth floor of a building down to the basement.
[Original version of this story had "UCLA"; corrected to: "UC Berkeley" -Ed.]
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday October 29 2016, @07:42PM
After searching around it seems that there is a definite agenda to the news reporting, and it seems pretty clear. Stoke the racial tensions in the US with clickbait headlines about racism against white people. I found one article earlier which quoted a dean saying roughly, "The protesters are blocking everyone, not just whites and asians. The people let through were supporters of the protest who joined the line."
So there you have it (god I wish I could find the link, but all I get are trash sites hyping fear and anger), a dean saying this isn't a race based protest. If you watch the video you will see asians being let into the line to join the protest, so the whole whites/asians bit is verifiable to be wrong. Also, a good portion of the protest is against the for-profit motives of administration by renting out campus space to merchants. That I can totally get behind, schools should not be about profit.
I previously said this protest is stupid, but I take that back. The "inconvenience" to others was a whopping few minutes tops to walk alternate paths. We are being fed a narrative that the only type of protesting that is acceptable is one where people get permits and don't inconvenience anyone in the slightest. I guess we're all going to ignore history then and pretend like the only protests that accomplished anything were done in a fenced off "free speech zone".
The reactionaries on this site are totally missing the point by not digging further. I was a bit guilty of this myself before I did some more research, realized they are not excluding whites and asians like the articles want to promote. Unwanted minority groups are often marginalized through lots of little moves and the only way to stop it is with such protests. I much prefer they do this than trash / vandalize the campus.
TLDR: The media is massively spinning this to whip up racial tensions and the protests are not actually about race. Safe spaces are like clubs, AA, or any other support group.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 30 2016, @12:30AM
FWIW, when I was a student, I knew how long it took me to get from point A to point B on campus, and rarely arrived at class more than 2 minutes early; "a whopping few minutes" of unexpected delay could well have seen me late for class, and while that's not a big deal in the big picture, the younger, dumber version of me would have been hopping mad.
If you're saying that negative coverage of this protest is promoting that narrative, that's a false dichotomy. There's more options than blocking a bridge (regardless of how near or far the alternate paths are) and getting a permit for a "free speech zone" protest. You could, for example, line up along one side of the bridge, so people can still get by on the bridge, but have to hear your chants and walk right by your signs.
If you just meant that there's an effort to push that narrative in general, of course there is, and I agree it's a problem, but don't see the connection to this particular protest.