Black Lives Matter is at it again. The latest campus protest to go viral involves student protesters confronting their fellow students studying at the library at Dartmouth College.
To say that the protesters confronted those in the library may be putting it lightly, actually. It was more of a frightening disruption. When their shouting made one girl cry, she was told “fuck your white tears.”
In their reporting, which includes a video from Campus Reform, Eagnews.org described in their headline how “‘Black Lives Matter’ protesters rage against students in Dartmouth library.”
With their disruptions it seemed as if the protesters just wanted to express their anger, rather than express actual concerns. There were plenty of calls of “fuck you, you filthy white fucks!” and “fuck you and your comfort!” There was also screams of “fuck you, you racist shit!” and the inevitable chants of “Black lives matter!”
Student protesters also ran into study rooms to disrupt and shout at students there. Some were even shoved.
In their reporting, the Daily Caller pointed to a Facebook post which read “We raised hell, we caused discomfort, and we made our voices heard all throughout this campus in the name of standing up for our brothers and sisters across the country who are staring terrorism and assault directly in the face.”
Yes, and in doing so, these protesters may have actually hurt their cause. Because people are really going to be more likely to agree that “black lives matter” when they’re being assaulted. If this incident teaches us something though, it’s that racism and oppression can work both ways, and even from those who claim to be fighting such societal ills.
Perhaps the most important account though comes from Charlie Lundquist writing for The Tab with his piece of “I was proud to be part of last night’s protest-until it turned ugly.”
His piece admits how he didn’t make it through the entire protest, because “a small group of participants had descended to aggressive verbal harassment of their fellow students.” In offering his readers to “let’s start at the beginning,” Lundquist goes through a thoughtful background of racism in the United States and why there are the needs for such protests.
If only there were more peaceful and thoughtful protesters like Charlie Lundquist, perhaps the campus protest scene wouldn’t be so heated and divisive right now.
He sums it well towards the end of his piece when he notes “that a large majority of the protestors [sic] did not engage in harassment of other students, but they are now being labelled as aggressive because of the small minority.”
If these protesters wanted attention they certainly got it, but any other goals of theirs may have been lost in their less than peaceful methods.
