In matters involving potential assault, I really, really, really, really, really give little credence to the word “seems.”
ETA: I mean using “seems” to speculate about someone else’s inner emotional state, specifically.
I think it is possible to deplore a situation where it has become difficult for students to experiment with their sociopolitical identity without it being part of their public identity for the rest of their lives, and at the same time think that the protest group’s behavior towards to the photographer was both grossly inappropriate and oddly un-self-reflective.
As for the attacks on Prof. Click’s professional work, seriously, just stop. She has a tenure-track position in a good university in a field where such positions are desperately hard to obtain, even to just get that job she must have been doing work of exceptional quality as judged by her academic peers. As a professor in another subject (albeit one which is usually immune from this kind of attack) I long ago realized the importance that work in a field be evaluated by the standards of that field.
That said, the irony of someone attached to a journalism school calling for muscle to restrain a journalist is certainly fair game for ridicule, and I feel a little sorry for Click, who through being filmed doing something astoundingly stupid will probably be judged by her school on this nonacademic behavior, even though it was surely meant to be student-centered behavior, usually deemed an asset in a colleague.
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They’re putting it all on Facebook, right?
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I’m guessing that she was not acting under the authority of the state during that protest. Just a guess, though!
That sounds like it could be a thing, but actually isn’t. Civil rights violations are related to the 14th Amendment, not the 1st. And neither amendment is grounds to sue anyone but the government or its immediate proxies. You and I can infringe on each other’s speech all day long, and there’s no constitutional recourse.
Now, if someone has done something illegal to harm you in any way at all, the government is obligated to try to protect you from the offender (equal protection under the law). But pointing that out is just saying that it’s illegal to commit crimes against people, which might not come as a surprise to our distinguished and erudite readers. Also it’s not pertinent to the incident under discussion, in which nobody committed a crime.
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Thanks for bringing sanity and clarity to this discussion. Can I like your posts in this thread 100 times?
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Additionally, although the reporter repeats to stop pushing him, he never seems to be afraid for his safety.
Right! If he had truly been afraid, or been assaulted, he would have filed a police report. This is obviously a non-situation, why would we believe the statements of somebody who won’t even press charges? He must be in this for the attention.
[\sarcasm]
I’m disappointed in you, Mindy. Are you next going to say because he was holding a camera he was just asking for it?
Did you put your sarcasm tag in the wrong place?
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I assume that’s meant generally, as I did not make any statements of condemnation toward her. And I fear that any backlash towards her will inevitably include the worst of the worst–I sincerely hope she is not confronted with that sort of ugliness and I also hope she’s able to salvage her career in the face of it all (and I’m aware she’s been removed, but you take my point).
I had a house party in college for the male and female rugby teams, and during the party a smallish group (8-10) of young men not connected with the party decided to throw some glass bottles from the street and into the backyard where part of the celebration was happening. The bulk of the guests were inside, and this group of young men began taunting the few people in the backyard to come out to the street and fight. They clearly didn’t know that the house was teeming with men AND women who could run faster and longer than them, and who could certainly handle this group of young men physically–I had no illusions as to who would be walking away and who would be carried, and we had our hands full at the back door just keeping those people from running outside and settling the score. But in the heat of the moment, we gathered everyone inside, called the cops, and continued partying. The scumbags outside fled at the sound of the police, we stayed inside and partied, and nobody got hurt.
Click made a terrible choice in that moment, and that choice intersected with questions about free speech, agency of people of color, definitions of public space, rights of the media, etc. And in a, frankly, fascinating turn, where law enforcement has attempted to stymie the use of recording devices to protect their members from accusations of wrongdoing, and where those recordings have been used to great effect against wrongdoing by LEOs (again, Sandra Bland, Rodney King, etc), Melissa Click’s request for physicality stands directly in contrast to issues the BLM movement has been protesting against this whole time. I live in Baltimore, and it is now common to see LEOs working one side of the street with lights flashing, while on the other side of the street three or more people are recording the event on their personal devices in the hopes of preventing wrongdoing of the sort that killed Freddie Gray and others.
In more stark terms, activism is a wholly separate animal from scholarly work, and it appears to be the case that she’s not cut out for that sort of chaotic, energetic, emotional environment.
I disagree. If we’re defining the development of a sociopolitical identity as expressing that sociopolitical identity in public, then one has to be prepared for the consequences that may result (e.g. being arrested, shouted at, photographed, videotaped, etc.). Congressman John Lewis is an excellent example of that.
We can have a discussion about whether Melissa Click did the right thing or didn’t that is parallel to, and mutually exclusive from, the nascent BLM movement. Shitheads will seize upon her actions and, as I’ve said above, use them as a cudgel against the movement as a whole–but in doing so, they betray their own agenda and demonstrate their own lack of intellect. I think (and certainly hope) the BLM movement will move past this and become stronger and more focused as a result.
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Nascent?! Where the hell have you been?
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Got me on that…sorta. From WP:
The movement began with the use of the hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin.
So ~2012? Honestly, I’m not sure how define it in temporal terms–is a three-year political movement past it’s nascency? When does a political movement leave college and get a real job? And when does it move back into it’s parent’s house and complain about paying rent?
EDIT: And I’ve been here, @milliefink, HERE THE WHOLE TIME… haven’t…haven’t you noticed?
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Fair enough. But we’re all making judgements here based on what seems to be happening in the video.
I’m not sure if @OtherMichael is up on his radical leftist handbook regarding solidarity through sarcasm.
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Nope, I’m too busy victim-blaming to be sarcastic.
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She won’t be able to. It’s horrible out there and there are so many people gunning for these jobs, anyone will exploit something like this to the fullest. There is little solidarity anymore in academia. She will be ripped apart for this, and that will indeed be the end of her career. And lots of people will be putting marks on the wall for how they took down another liberal elitist out to destroy America. and they don’t give a shit about the kids in the trenches we’re supposed to be helping. Whatever her faults, whatever she did, Click gave a shit. She was willing to show up and help those kids. And it might have cost her her career. That’s the price you pay for caring about anyone other than yourself in this world.
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You’re either with us or against us, @OtherMichael… which side are you on, man?
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Edit: sarcastic enough for ya?
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Melissa Click wasn’t helping. Melissa Click is part of the problem.
Good riddance.
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Trollin trollin trollin…
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