The threat was that the activists were going to successfully block the street. At this point, people were shoved to the ground, dragged across the pavement and plastic pellets were shot at the crowd. I saw wounds left by these pellets on students I’ve seen in my own classrooms. There is ample video out there showing this. The UCPD threw people to the ground, the UCPD shot their new pellet guns into the crowd, the UCPD used force on us. The next day: UC administrators organized an Orwellian campaign to represent the violence of that incident as caused not by the UCPD but by the protesters. Even more bizarre was the eagerness for the administration to blame not students, but the public – as if the two should be distinguished from each other. In weekly letter to the campus community the Chancellor White claimed that “the disturbance of a few individuals” ruined the demonstration, and that they did not represent the “non-violent students and community members engaged in peaceful protest and exercising their right to free speech.” But the people beaten and shot at by the UCPD are our students; they are our colleagues. And they are our neighbors. We were all in it together. They are the public, and the public is us.

Read full article [here].
by Jennifer Doyle, The Nation.

Posted: January 26th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.