Protesting has always been dangerous. It’s a constitutional right. But if one person crosses the line, cops use it as an excuse to brutalize everyone present.
Protect yourself. @CrimethInc has you covered (pun intended). Here’s a handy guide on how to stay safe in the streets.
Don’t get caught, stay safe, and smash the state!
✊🏻🔥❤️🪧
"The order they are after is all around us—a Homeowners Association with a S.W.A.T. team at its disposal, a business that grows at a steady rate without making anything anyone could use, a world in which things simply happen and continue to happen, a pristine desolation that is safe precisely because of how empty it is."
"Violence stuns UCLA as counterprotesters attack pro-Palestinian camp" Not the campers, outside agitators. And the cops came and let it continue for almost 3 hours before lining up and separating them.
Always seems to be the case, doesn't it? Police indifferent to violence? Lots of questions for UCLA today.
As pro-Palestinian #protests continued to escalate across the country, ofcls & students at #BrownUniversity set a rare example on Tues: They made a deal.
Demonstrators agreed to dismantle their encampment at #Brown, which had been removed by Tues evening, & university leaders said they would discuss, & later vote on, divesting funds from companies connected to the #IDF campaign in #Gaza.
Well, that's disappointing. Chancellor gets called by the GOP for a sham committee where I'm sure he'll be set up, suddenly camp gets set up to be shut down.
Hope at least they manage it peacefully. But we'll see.... UCPD isn't great or anything.
People take part in a protest calling for the release of hostages kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 29. The words in Hebrew on the flag read "Peace". REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Protesters hang banners on the exterior of Hamilton Hall building after barricading themselves inside the building at Columbia University, after an earlier order from university officials to disband the protest encampment supporting Palestinians, or face suspension, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, U.S., April 30, 2024
A state trooper pepper sprays pro-Palestinian protesters, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, after police vehicles were blocked at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, U.S. April 29, 2024. Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman/USA Today Network via REUTERS.
From my oldest, at Virginia Commonwealth University where students were pepper sprayed last night. Remember this is the generation that experienced school shootings and feels abandoned by the adults and systems. #students#protests#columbia#Gaza
When you yourself are not healthy enough to protest (i.e. you know you'd be a big liability) but wish that you could, what are good ways to support the folks getting out there?
Talked with leadership about the protests in Colorado today, nobody said; "the arrests on Friday were a mistake" but they did say; "they immediately returned and are still there"..
The problems that will generate a response is the disruption of learning or teaching and the obvious stuff like violence or hate speach, not officially but those are the rules that were quoted. They also card locked the buildings so that students could access and use the toilet but non students can't, that's to keep the protest a student protest apparently and perhaps reduce the encampment impact.
My campus is across town and I mentioned that the armored response did nothing to keep things calm and head nods all around. We read my email to the chief and his response into the record as well. All in all I think that leadership learned quickly from Friday and is acting fairly and appropriately at this point.
Another #JewishStudent has been assaulted by the "peaceful" #proHamas#protesters for committing the crime of trying to film protest activities in public.
These #protests are only peaceful until you don’t comply. They're only peaceful if you follow everything these random people are telling you to do. It was peaceful for this student until he wanted to film.
"To resist radical evil, as you are doing, is to endure a life that by the standards of the wider society is a failure. It is to defy injustice at the cost of your career, your reputation, your financial solvency and at times your life. It is to be a lifelong heretic. (...) The dominant culture, even the liberal elites, will push you to the margins and attempt to discredit not only what you do, but your character."
My oldest was a spectator at a protest tonight at James Madison University and was pepper sprayed by police. As a spectator. As were the students protesting.
I may not be some big time donor. But I’m a mom. I pay the tuition bill. And I’m pissed. #students#protests
Fear is widespread on American campuses, researcher says
Students are “observing acts of physical violence and intimidation right in front of them. Jewish students are seeing Jewish buildings attacked. Muslim students are seeing people ... counterattack against Muslims. The students that are not Jewish and not Muslim, they’re just seeing everybody getting ... attacked.”
The Guardian today has a photo of tents on the steps of UC Berkeley's Sproul Hall, the admin building. I spent a night in such a tent in 1985, as part of an anti-apartheid protest. That protest now has a lengthy Web page praising it on the official UC site, because the whole movement achieved its goals.
Ironically, today's protest could equally well have taken place in 1985, also.
@plragde It's wonderful that the apartheid regime in South Africa fell. In retrospect, do you think that protests at Columbia University in 1985 had any significant role in that fall?