Matt Salesses wonders if the freedom to speak out, or the ability to change things, will be available to his daughter.
Yesterday, I cried for the first time in not so long, but for the first time since 9/11 for my country. Or maybe I was crying for my daughter.
In the last few days, student protestors, sitting, or standing with linked arms, were pepper-sprayed and beaten by police ordered to remove their tents from public property.
I have become afraid for my daughter’s future. The University of California system is one of the most respected in the world. So how can we explain to our children this:
Or this:
We can write beautifully about what happened, as former Poet Laureate Robert Hass did in the New York Times, or stand up for what we believe in, as Berkeley professor Celeste Langan did, or respond peacefully and powerfully, as the students themselves did—but what do we tell our families’ and our universities’ and our country’s future; that is, our children?
I’m not sure. I can’t understand what happened myself. Yesterday, as I looked at my 4-month-old daughter, her total innocence and the breadth of possibility ahead of her, I felt sorry for her. I felt sorry that some of those possibilities perhaps do not exist. That the freedom to speak her mind against the rich, or the ability to change things, may not be available to her. It is a horrible horrible feeling to pity your child’s future.
I can’t understand seeing a line of sitting students and deciding to spray pepper directly into their faces. I can’t understand dragging a woman around by her hair when she has offered her wrists. I can’t understand telling the police to use force, if that is what happened. There was a point at which those university officials and police looked at the options and decided to stop change through violence.
I wonder, what was at stake for them? What did they have to lose by letting the students demonstrate? What did they have to gain?
It’s a simple question, stakes, but I don’t know the answer.
I don’t know why, but it seems that ordinary citizens have less power over what happens to them than I can remember. It is impossible not to note that the people with the most to lose or gain in these protests are those protested against, the richest 1%.
What will I tell my daughter when she comes home from school asking about the Bill of Rights? What does Chancellor Katehi tell her children, if she has any? What do the police who decided to use violence tell their children? I would like to know—and I say this not as simple rhetoric but with actual concern. I don’t know how to tell my daughter that she is not being lied to when she learns about freedom.
Last night, when I filled my wife in on what was happening, the first question she asked was what the president was doing about it. In January, President Obama condemned the violence against peaceful protestors in Egypt. How can I explain to my daughter that if only she were not American, the President would stand up for her?
I fear that the answer is in the stakes. There is nothing to lose if the President speaks out against the violence in Egypt. Is there something to lose if he speaks out against the violence in California? I don’t know.
In 2008, we believed we were voting for Hope and Change. I still have hope. I still believe in change. But it is hard for me not to see the response, and non-response, of the government as a sort of Wizard of Oz scenario, where our belief in a trick keeps us at bay from the truth. Except that what is in front of the curtain isn’t some all-powerful persona, it is something even more deceptive—it is the idea that we have any power ourselves.
How will the Wizard explain to my daughter that all she has to do to save herself is to knock her heels together and say, “There’s no place like home,” when she is already home?
About Matthew Salesses
Thanks for sharing this perspective. I have wondered what parents think about what this means for the future of their children in our country and I’m grateful you’ve shared.
Matthew, at the moment I first saw this video, my own daughter was participating in a protest on her own college campus. I was a wreck. I posted this in a facebook thread:
“So I am the parent of a college student. She is a human being, not a cockroach, and if I were the parent of one of those UC-Davis kids who were peacefully protesting tuition hikes and assaulted by the campus police, I would become the most ferocious mama grizzly the world has ever seen. I would hunt that cop down and deal with him with my bare hands, and I would sue that college to my last breath. Nothing has gotten to me as badly as this video so far. And you know what? People ask me why I watch stuff like this or read the news because it is so upsetting, and don’t I want to just focus on my own family and be thankful for what I have. WHY are these things mutually exclusive? I have plenty of love and fun in my life. I also feel I have a responsibility to pay attention, to care, to activate. No, I will not turtle in because it’s more convenient, more fun, less stressful. I need to understand why our democracy is under attack, why this country has become so corrupt. I can have my glass of wine and eat my nice dinner and watch a light sitcom and enjoy my life. ALSO I can CARE what is happening to other people and try to get more people to also care.”
I do not know what upsets me more–the way our country has gone completely off the rails, or the way there is so much apathy out there. This made me cry too. Your daughter is young, you worry about her future. My daughter is 19–I worry about her right now. We need lots more people to worry, to cry, to be angry.
I say, IF YOU’RE NOT ANGRY, YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.
So keep paying attention. When your daughter is older, teach her the same.
Thank you for writing.
Thank you, Lori. I’m sure that the parents of these students will organize on their own, right? I hope they do.
Firstly, don’t be worried about the pepper spray. Your rights, and your daughters rights, are not being infringed upon, especially since you are some 2500 miles away from this incident. These students were not ‘attacked’. The police officers in this pepper spray video were doing their job. These students, and the surrounding mob of students+the leftovers of the failed Oakland movement down the road a bit, were blocking a main walkway on campus for the handful of students who actually *want* to continue to learn and try to make it through the constant heckling they receive by NOT joining these useless idiots. These students were told to clear the premises; their position had become a danger to the rest of the walking public in the campus. When they did not comply, the police used pepper spray, which is a common way nationwide to non-violently make a man do what you want him to do without having to have two or three people stand each individual up, by force, and handcuff or restrain him. Pepper spray is a non-lethal force multiplier. After this relatively mild attempt to have their instructions followed, the rest of the crowd became violent, requiring a response, as large mindless groups of sheep are known to do.
Your daughter will be fine. Raise her up to be respectable, and she will be respected, not the other way around. You sling her into this leftist marxist socialist fantasy world you think we should all live in, and she will be disappointed at an early age. Keep in mind, you may think you are the 99%, or know what the rest of the country believes or goes through. On a nationwide basis, at least based on current Occupy protest levels nationwide, you are the 1%, or more like the .01%. And based on a global comparison? Where do you think your income, which is probably comparatively modest compared to, say, a CEO, would rank against the vast majority of the populace of the Sudan, or Kenya, or any other third world country? We as a nation are the 1%. And yet, you don’t see any skinny black people marching up and down Pennsylvania Avenue with ‘we are the 99%’ signs. You know why? Because they have actual lives to live, and on the whole, this little protest means nothing. Nothing.
wow.
Wow is right.
And in case you need further impetus to raise your daughter to be a caring citizen…
Or further reason to get yourself to the polls next November…
SCARY.
hmmm sheep do what they’re told until it’s time to be slaughtered or fleeced… the protesters in “this little protest” are not behaving like sheep. as for doing nothing they have shone a bright light on the income disparity in America. as for Pepper spray being a reasonable means to control a group that could become violent “as large mindless groups of sheep are known to do.” no it’s not it’s a defense tool, a non lethal defense tool, batons, pepper spray, tear gas or for violent criminals not people who MIGHT get violent, (but judging by their past performance are very unlikely to do so even in the face of violence aimed at them). As for raising our children to be respectful, does that mean raising them to do what they are told even when they feel it is wrong. After all the police were doing their job, or put another way ” Just following orders”, now i sympathize with the tough position the police are in, got a lot of them in my friends and family. but this is not going to go away because people are seeing something that’s wrong, and more and more people are seeing that it is. So you relax and teach your kids to go where the dog tells them until it’s their turn to be fleeced… or will it be slaughtered this time. my children are respectful but they also know when to say ” no this isn’t right” and either they or I would take what is given to us for our “disrespect”. i’m not at an occupy movement because i need all my time to work three different jobs to pay my bills… They are standing up for those suffering from the income disparity in america. Whether or not they are appreciated for it… not the act of a sheep in my eyes, in fact it’s much more similar to the founders of this nation.
… Well..
We could start by telling our children that the government isn’t here to coddle squatters, masochist, pot heads & anarchist looking for a good time.
Other then that, your daughter’s “feelings” are irrelevant.
So what about the professors, United States Poet Laureates, and businessmen and women who are taking part in these demonstrations? The gross generalization of the people taking part in these demonstrations is disgusting and reprehensible.
Yeah right, show me the professor and Buisness owners that got mased.
Budmin, read the piece. The woman pulled around by her hair was a tenured Berkeley professor. A former poet laureate watched his wife pushed down for no reason.
Not to mention the un-tenured assistant professor who put his job on the line by drafting a demand that university officials step down.
It’s sad that you’ve (Budmin) formed your opinion with little regard to carefully reading and educating yourself on what you are forming an opinion against. I respect the matter of differing opinions, but it is obvious that you are putting little to no real thought or care into educating yourself on what you are opining against.
That asst.prof. wins no matter what. If he loses his job, he still wins. He did the right thing. That was an amazing piece of writing. Sign the change.org petition going around calling for the UC-Davis Cancellor’s resignation.
Alright granted that she is a professor, did she get peper sprayed?
No
Were the students that did get peper sprayed squatters?
Yes
Sorry ladies and gentalmen we do not live in a Marxist fantasy land where property rights are trumped by “free speech” rights. If there is such a thing as free speech under Marxism. This over reaction by the media is an insult to real protesters.
Sure, real protesters are like real Scotsmen, they always wear kilts.
Right on, Budmin. Real protesters like the Tea Party, whose rallies were always planned and straightforward, clean, and orderly. Do you recall that massive headlining news story about that crazy Tea Party protest in [insert any city here] where they arrested all those nutbags and had to mace a bunch of people, and had to pay someone big bucks to come in and clean up all the trash? Really, you can’t remember it? Oh wait, that’s right, I can’t remember anything like that because IT NEVER HAPPENED. The Tea Partiers were clean respectful people expressing their opinions in a planned environment. Not a bunch of wortheless wanna-be hippies trying to dislodge the silver spoon stuck up their ass.
Right on! And what about the Westboro Baptist Church protests against gays?! You didn’t see them getting arrested either because they know how to protest! Also mainly because there were many lawyers in the church. Oh and also both the Tea Party and Westboro were about .00000000000000000000000001% of the size of OCW.. Genius.
As to the professors and hippie poets with longer titles, so what? Just because you have been given a leadership position at a university, that does not necessarily impart any extraordinary level of intelligence or higher-level thinking. Quite the opposite, in fact. Bill Ayers, known terrorist and apparently close buddy with the Anointed One BHO, is a Professor. His associate from the Weather Underground, Bernadine Dohrn,. is also a professor. These are people that would willingly kill people like you and your daughter, Matt, because you have the audacity to name your daughter a femanine name, buy her girl clothes, and not let her decide what her gender will be. Bernadine Dohrn once wrote a poem, a fantistic little ditty, about how happy she was that a young black policeman had been killed in the 70s. And how happy she was to know that his wife and two young children would never get to see him again. Look it up! You are the enemy in their eyes.
My daughter and 1000′s of other college students like her…many of my friends and relatives…1000′s and 1000′s of people involved in these protests are not “squatters, masochist, pot heads & anarchist looking for a good time.” They are all upstanding citizens without drug habits, who vote and pay taxes, and want to participate in a democracy that has been HIJACKED. Do you read *anything*? Do you watch quality news programs? Are you living in a cave? Do you have any idea how many teachers, nurses, firemen, doctors, lawyers, business people, and on and on and ON are participating in these protests??? Are your eyes even open? I see them on t.v. I read about them. They are there on video, every single day, marching, sitting-in, and in other ways peacefully assembling as is their constitutional right. Are there ANY potheads there? I’m sure! There are ALL kinds of people there. But to so grossly and negatively generalize who the 99% are is patently absurd. Honestly, you are just not paying attention and are making stuff up out of the clear blue sky and then spouting it off as if fact. Be a Republican. Be a Tea Party guy. Be whatever kind of political idealogue you want. But don’t lie or spread misinformation. You just make yourself look ignorant.
*thumbs up*
Please…..businessmen and women. Think about what you are saying! If someone is a small business owner, how do they have time to go out and spend a month straight protesting? And, If they have other employees running the business for them while they are away, odds are they are not small business owners, and necessarily would not be there. Unless you are talking about drug dealers…I’m sure they are making a killing. Now, please keep in mind, when I say businessman/woman, I mean REAL businesses, like stores, service, sales, etc. Taking garbage, small beads, sticks, etc…and sewing them together to make clothing or jewelry to sell on the internet is NOT a business. All hippies can do this, apparently. Too bad their biggest consumers are other hippies, and have no money to buy such things.
You really need to try harder, this is last-in-the-class trolling.
Many of the world’s worst atrocities are committed by people who are “just doing their jobs”. If my job included pepper spraying innocent kids for exercising their right to free speech…. I’d quit! These police were abusing authority, period. No excuse for it, just plain unethical. Bunch of pansies too, hiding behind those billy clubs and pepper spray. Those kids did not deserve what happened to them.
I disagree that pepper spray is non-violent. It causes a severe amount of pain to the afflicted individual. It’s great for warding off attackers, but, to my knowledge, it is literally illegal to use in aggression. The police in the video are using excessive force and aggressing on the peaceful protesters. Unlawful acts committed in the name of doing one’s job are still unlawful.
Further, the crowd didn’t become violent in response. The marched towards the police chanting “shame on you”, and when the police had been backed out of the quad, they shouted that they were giving them “a moment of peace” and the opportunity to leave, which the police did. That’s not violent, that’s the first successful -peaceful- eviction of law-breaking, violent police that I’ve seen on film.
This isn’t to deride cops in general as law-breaking or violent. It’s not even to say these cops are all bad all the time. Rather, in this instance, these cops did a bad thing, and the people of the campus did their duty to peacefully evict the aggressors from the premisses.
The thing with everyone saying this was a public place is false this all happened at a University.
With is not public place it is a privately owned. Just because you are allowed to enter an area freely doesn’t make it public.
I could let you walk across my yard every day to get some where but the day you pitch a tent and start a protest on it you can bet I’ll call the police to remove you. You refuse / resist you deserve what you get.
These students are at fault. Peaceful protests that don’t block true public areas are rarely broken up.
Resisting arrest is and refusing to comply is against the law.
JD, this is a public university, and it is a public space.
If only these protesters would have disbanded in an orderly fashion, as ordered by the police, none of this would happen. If you choose to disobey the law and authority, this type of thing will occur. If I was told leave or be sprayed, I’d leave. Not refuse and lock arms. The police are doing their jobs and the protesters are only getting what they were warned of.
The protesters have the right to assemble peacefully in a public place, they were not breaking the law.
these are nazi like tactics. Aa a police chaplain I ask that as a country we demonstrate against this brutal behavior. some students could die. enough is enough. reminds me of Kent State. rabbi dr. bernhard rosenberg 732 572 2766 as a university teacher I SHOUT PROTECT OUR YOUNG. THIS IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THIS IS NOT EGYPT OR SYRIA.
Rosenberg you are not the police chaplain of any town any more .I read members of your own community had you removed from that post, you may be a lot of things but the police chaplain of your town you are not. The people of New York do not need you sticking your nose where it does not belong.
Law isn’t passed on from the lips of the police, but their hands are meant to enforce it. A police person saying that you need to vacate an area isn’t a lawful decree, and if their orders are a violation of your rights, such as the right to assembly, they can be ignored or resisted.
The notion that freedom to speak and assemble is limited only to “whenever it doesn’t disrupt anything or bother anybody” undermines the importance of those freedoms.
Tell your daughter that the United States has an ideal of freedom, and that reality often fails to live up to that ideal. And that it’s our job, as citizens, to bring the two together.
Just keep in mind that if you choose to “disrupt anything or bother anybody”, you are putting the physical safety of yourself and those around you at risk. And I’m not talking about from the police. Some people overreact to that kind of activity. Choose your battles wisely and don’t get caught up in the mob mentality when it takes a wrong turn.
“The notion that freedom to speak and assemble is limited only to “whenever it doesn’t disrupt anything or bother anybody” undermines the importance of those freedoms.”
Your statement has merit, under the right circumstances. But imagine another student there who has no interest in participating in the protests, or wishes to protest by supporting capitalism and free enterprise with signs and slogans? Do you think that this ‘peaceful mob’ would have let him speak, or pass the body chain? No. This is an example of people undermining the rights of others to procure the same rights for themselves. They have forgone others First Amendment rights in a wayward attempt to protect what they have been lied to believe is a reduction of theirs.
So, your complaint about the protestors exercising their free-speech rights is that they hypocritically suppressed the ability of others to exercise those rights… in the imaginary situation you just made up in your head.
Hmm. Frankly, I don’t see this is a major failing.
Saying that people from ___ country aren’t protesting isn’t a good argument.
When you tell people that they shouldn’t complain because they have it better than someone somewhere else, that’s how freedom dies.
Well, I think that freedom dies when the entire nation is blasted with reports from the Left-protecting media insinuating that a GOP presidential candidate must hate black people because he may have set foot on a property that at one point may have had a rock on it that at one point may have had the word ‘niggerhead’ painted on it – all petty much unsubstantiated, of course. And yet, the Anointed One, our acclaimed ‘leader’, is friends with, has been supported financially by, and probably owes favors to known domestic terrorists who would kill pretty much anyone for a reason as small as, ” he called me ma’am.”
“Callin’ it your job don’t make it right, boss.” -Paul Newman as Cool Hand Luke
Nazi soldiers were just doing their job as well.
Ah, Godwin’s Law. I was wondering when it would crop up here.
LOL. Go on Huffington and look me up and you’ll see what I wrote about Godwin’s Law recently. Don’t want to spam the thread.
Here’s something that should clear up some of these comments about the protesters blocking paths, etc. Please get the facts: http://studentactivism.net/2011/11/20/ten-things-you-should-know-about-fridays-uc-davis-police-violence/
This is a really great link, thanks for this.
I am so impressed by the students’ unified commitment to non-violent, peaceful protest.
Initially I wanted to believe that Katehi was a tone deaf member of the elite and that she didn’t understand what she was doing. Now she is trying to protect her position saying that she was trying to keep the students safe and that she is appointing a commission to “look into what happened.”
I now believe that SHE and pretty much everything she stands for are the problem with what we face in this country. Our leadership is not willing to hold themselves accountable for their actions and we, the people, are not in a position of power to hold them accountable. With the very risky position of authority it should be possible for great reward to be achieved, but there also has to be accountability and let’s be honest that’s gone out the window these days. The only people accountable now seem to be those who so dearly NEED a good leader.
Katehi sat on the phone with Don Lemon on CNN and seemed less than remorseful about her involvement in these events and NO ONE has truly taken her to task. When will that day come? When will that day come for so many in charge of this country? There are no more parachutes for those at the middle and the bottom, so when do they run out at the top? That seems to be the question here and we still haven’t seen an answer.
There is an open letter calling for her resignation by one of her professors, as well as a change.org petition. Both are going around virally right now. She needs to resign immediately.
for her peace of mind as much as for everyone else’s, i would hope.
I’m proud of those kids. I am disgusted by the activities of those police and I am ashamed of any American who apologizes for their behavior. Anyone who fails to denounce the behavior of police in this country violating basic civil and human rights clearly does not understand the finer points of the 1st ten amendments to our Constitution.
In so far as our Constitution is a compass for patriotism the act of protesting grievances is as patriotic as carrying a gun, freely practicing the religion of your choice or printing a newspaper. It is remarkable to me how Americans like to cherry pick the parts of the Constitution they feel are important.
You tell them that, in this modern world, every second you are in the proximity of a western police officer your life, health and well being are in danger. The best action you can take is remove yourself from their presence as swiftly as possible. If your ethics demand you remain in their presence, be prepared to meet violence with violence or prepare to be a punching bag, and quite possibly occupy a body bag. Police procedures absolve the police of any death you might experience as long as they followed their policies. The protection of the law is only for those left standing at the end of a confrontation.
I really felt the same way. My mother was at the Kent State University shooting, my dad protested the Vietnam War for two years before being deployed. So I ask myself when viewing this footage: what will you be known for? This was the first time I’ve cried in a long time.
It sounds like many people will be working to change the currently accepted local police policies and tactics of their communities and campuses. In addition you will have to support legislation which reduces the civil liability of police forces as they allow for the peaceful and lawful assembly of people. Because sometimes they don’t stay peaceful and lawful. So even if police officers are in the immediate area they will not be able to prevent the initial violence and damage. In fact sometimes it may get out of control. That’s part of the price to be paid.
Hey, I’m all for it. But I don’t think we’re going to have the votes.
Let’s just be clear here:
Nazism and Socialism, while both authoritarian in nature, are vastly different ideologies. Even though the Nazi movement was first labeled the National Socialist movement in Germany, it was a gross misuse of the term “Socialism” in the sense that we know it today. Nazism is in truth grounded in Fascist ideals of corporatism with some xenophobic aspects tossed in for good measure, and was in direct opposition to the Communist movement in Europe in the 20s and 30s. Socialism on the other hand is meant as a stepping stone to true Communism. While not a Socialist myself, I will admit that the end to which the Socialist philosophy aspires is much more good-natured than the end to which Nazism aspires.
If you’re going to take part in discussions of this nature, it serves you well to understand the various philosophies that you are at once heralding and denigrating.
For the sake of fairness though, I believe the case studies you could cite to make your point are the regimes of Lenin and Stalin during the rise of the Soviet Union, and Mao Tse-Tung in China, wherein many more millions of people were alleged to have died for the sake of the Socialist agenda. Also, Castro and Guevara in Cuba killed 1,000s.
Subject: THE WORLD IS ON FIRE
. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZk3ynr_S-g&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL SEE WORLD ON FIRE VIDEO
There is a limit to peaceable assembly. Blocking streets and sidewalks is limited by permit in advance, if at all.
That you have the holy, ignorant innocence of youth does not give you the right to upset other people’s lives. Some of the OWS participants took over retail and restaurant restrooms, leaving them trashed, demanded free food from the local operations.
Eventually, society gets to have its streets and sidewalks, parks and paths back.
I watched, but did not participate in, protests in the Sixties. One of the goals of such activities, planned in advance, is to provoke the cops into violence. When I did civil rights in MS, I knew some groups whose demonstrators said “chicks to the front” because it made better film footage.
I’ve been teargassed. Part of basic training. You get over it. Pepper spray is a compliance tool. If the Sainted and Holy Kids were making it too difficult for the cops to remove them from the sidewalk by, among other things, linking arms, the pepper spray would make things easier. Pepper spray is unpleasant but the possibility of orthopedic injury to the cops or The S&H Kids is worse. The advantage, to the S&H Kids, is that pepper spray is visible on camera while sprained shoulders and wrists are not. It’s better propaganda. So provoking pepper spray is GOOD THING. Let’s not pretend anybody doesn’t know this.
I think an important question that needs to be posed is “Why do we have to be peaceful?”. When the state uses brutality against its citizens, we do not suggest responding with reciprocal or overwhelming violence, instead we retreat into peaceful protest which still attracts violence from our government’s agencies. Citizens are maimed and sometimes killed by the very organisations that allegedly promised to keep us safe and yet we meekly accept it.
In the first picture I see citizens standing buy while other citizens are sprayed by the cop, a gratuitous brutality, yet no-one stepped forward and prevented him. No-one used violence to prevent his act of violence.
I think we have been pacified and we don’t realise it. We accept that the police will brutalise peaceful protestors yet react with horror when protestors hurl bricks or molotovs at police. Somehow we have learned that we should be victims, that such a state has some nobility to it, and that seems wrong to me.