You take me wrongly, I think.
I support the protesters. What I don’t get is trying to exclude the press. A protest without press is like a day without sunshine… isn’t it?
I, they, well… they were successful, I’m glad of it. Some press must have gotten through.
I did, thanks for the clarification.
I wouldn’t go so far as the sunshine thing, but I agree with you.
I support the protests against racism at the university.
I am against the physical intimidation of a peaceful journalist from a public space.
It’s possible for the same people to be doing both, and for me to support some of their actions, but not the others. It’s a complex world and all that.
I do have to ask if you’ve watched the video as well as seen images, because you’ve described the opposite to what’s in there. Tai is taking photos, and a crowd of students crowd him and shove him backwards with “Everyone walk forward. It’s my right to walk forwards isn’t it? Yeah, I think it’s my right.”
Yes, I have seen the video. My point is that no physical threat emanated from the group, I don’t think he was, or needed to be afraid for his own physical safety. The level of aggression shown to him was markedly less than the level of aggression the Black students experienced during the Homecoming parade.
What I would be interested to know is if he would have been similarly instant (and if the person filming would have also filmed) when facing a wall of the men who pushed the Black students about… I just think that it is far easier to be assertive with a not really threatening group than a threatening one… And I can imagine a number of situations where journalist would walk away from a public space because they felt it too dangerous. In the UK and most of Europe a football game would be such an occasion.
At this point in the narrative, they were not protesting but were trying to figure out their next steps, after having successfully protested…
1 Like
Your point was with a reading that he was trying to walk through, and they passively stopped him walking. That’s the exact opposite of what happened, he was stood still, and they actively pushed him backwards.
I’m not talking about a “but what if this was a football match?” straw men, playing things down with “he doesn’t really look scared” or irrelevant equivalences like “yeah, but they’re not AS aggressive as the people were at homecoming”. I’m talking about the situation in the video - a peaceful journalist in a public space is physically pushed out of it by a crowd. That’s what happened, and that’s wrong.
If only there were some way for the students to preserve their anonymity in a public place!
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
