My work colleague who has never discussed politics with me came up to me this morning and asked whether I had seen what was happening in US universities in terms of protests about the war in #Gaza.
She then got out her phone and showed me a clip that had left her distraught of a female Economics professor being grabbed by police and having head smashed into the pavement.
This colleague visited Auschwitz last month. She’s not antisemitic. Watching it had brought back memories of George Floyd.
‘Caroline Fohlin, an economics professor at Emory University, was handcuffed and pinned by police during a pro-Palestine demonstration.’
https://www.m9.news/usa-news/professor-screamed-but-got-assaulted-by-policeon-cam/amp/
The world is watching how the US treats those who engage in peaceful protest about the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.
Even in a conservative rural backwater like Norfolk, UK people are watching and wondering what is going on.
Why are the police allowed to use dangerous amounts of physical force, rubber bullets and tear gas against those questioning why their universities and country should support a regime that has killed 34,000 people in 6 months who are mostly women and children.
Pro Palestinian protests have now spread to 40 universities across the US.
Both students and their professors are being treated with extreme physical pressure by the police.
Universities can’t continue to claim this is just about ‘troublemakers’ from outside their campuses breaking college rules…this is
about repression of peaceful protest by those who are calling for debate within their institutions.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/26/pro-palestinian-protests-college-campuses
Who decides the policing approach taken to peaceful protests across the US?
The university leaders or police chiefs?
What do they think the optics are for their policing that are being seen around the world right now?
@JugglingWithEggs
I saw that whole video and that professor was entirely in the wrong for attempting to interfere with law enforcement.
She was treated gently in contrast to how I have seen many other people of color treated when they were actually innocent. The whining about these protests just sounds to me like white/elite whining about their privilege not protecting them like they think it should.
@GreenFire @JugglingWithEggs "interfere" is vague, what action was illegal or unacceptable? What law was being enforced?
Police should treat black people with respect, not treat everyone like they've been treating black people for the past few decades.
@GreenFire @JugglingWithEggs At risk of helping a troll refine their technique I'm going to point out the big tell: "whining".
That one word is a nugget of contempt buried at the heart of an attempt to get two groups fighting each other.
But there's another tell: the word "actually".
Nothing says "troubled relationship with reality" faster than declaring and 'splaining at people.
Two words, like two points on a line, establish the through line of fascist bs.
BS you brought.
A specimen.
@GreenFire@mstdn.social Shut your damn mouth. Nobody interfered with the arrest, you fool.
@JugglingWithEggs the whole things is such a mess. Very passionate people for very good reasons on both sides want you to be on one side or the other. All I want though is for us all to acknowledge that millions of people are pawns in the middle and are paying a very dear price for choices of violence on all sides.
@JugglingWithEggs Guess what?
The #USA isn't a #democracy, but an #oligarchy...