Campus activists endorse segregation, but get some blowback, too.
Last week, a video surfaced of a pair of female students at Arizona State University confronting two white men sitting in what was described to them as a “multicultural space.” The clip showed a student sitting in front of a laptop with a “Police Lives Matter” sticker on display, and the other wore a shirt with the phrase “Did not vote for Biden” on the front. The women attacked the men for infringing on an area they claimed was “multicultural.”
One of the women pointed out that she took issue with the pro-police sticker and told the two males they should study elsewhere. Almost immediately, the verbal assault became racial, with one of the women saying, “Okay, this white man thinks he can take up our space. And this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with this s—t.” One of the students got up and left the room, declaring that he would go to the dean of students for being harassed and driven from the study area. Then one of the confrontational women went into a monologue, accusing the two men of being white supremacists, proclaiming “white is not a culture.”
At the end of the video, one of the women asserted that “multiculturalism was not about we all come together and hold hands, it means that we provide space and protect the most marginalized.” Though the women asserted that the area was a multicultural space, Twitter and other social media revealed that the “Multicultural Solidarity Coalition” was not a registered student organization.
The majority of responses on Twitter were overwhelmingly supportive of the men who had been harassed based on their skin color. The video showed an Asian student tried to mediate the confrontation, pointing out that, despite the political T-shirt and sticker, the men didn’t deserve to be racially abused and prevented from studying. That student’s attitude seemed to be shared by most on social media — but not all. The Students for Socialism ASU group released a statement in support of the women. Of course, this begged the question of how a socialist group could ever justify racial segregation. Various commenters also pointed out that attacking the student for a “racist” Police Lives Matter sticker could not stand up to scrutiny, since data show more than a third of the country’s police force has a minority background. However, the response to this event may suggest that the tide is turning on activists who promote racial hatred.
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