I have no idea how anything at the University of Missouri ever gets done. It's pretty clear this is a campus held hostage by a few entitled nitwit students and a few radical professors (some of whom have lost their job).
But I'm at a loss for words when it comes to stuff like this.
Black pain is not an easy subject to cover, but the lesson we can take from this encounter at Missouri is that our presence as journalists, with the long legacy of criminalizing blackness that comes with it, may trigger the same harmful emotions that led to the students’ protests in the first place.
We have a name for activists who don't want the media around. They are called fascists. They seek to impose their views by force, and having media around exposes their sometimes brutal and always childish behavior to the world. It has nothing to do with sensitivity or "safe space" (what the hell is that?). It has everything to do with hiding your aggression from visibility.
Now, as the University continues to spin out of control, we're learning that most of the claims were lies. We're learning the hunger striker is really just an entitled brat. The football team are just useful idiots, pawns in a bigger game of stupidity, which became apparent when the students sought to separate themselves to create "black only healing space."
I have no doubt these students have grandparents who fought to have schools integrated. So I'm confused. Did we come full circle? Is separate but equal the law of the land, or is separate but equal only in effect if and when a certain group of people say they want it to be in effect? I'm all for their right to voluntarily segregate themselves, but if they do so they should be aware they are simply making things unequal once again, and they have no standing to ask to be treated equally.
They have created a very arbitrary line. I think I'll go create my "white only healing space" to sort through my emotions on this, but I have a feeling I'd be called a racist for having that space. I know these kids are wrong. It's hard for opinions to be wrong, but when they are, they are usually wrong by a long shot. In this case there's no question. These are not students, because they've learned nothing and are acting out on childish impulses. If the university had a president, I'd think the correct response is to expel each and every one of them. There's always room for protest on campus, there's always room for freedom of speech. But there isn't room for lying, misrepresentation, and there's certainly no room for closing one's mind to history and/or the law simply because your emotions were 'triggered'. Time to grow up, snowflakes.
