Tuesday in America
Solidarity with the students
Uptown and live, coming in and out, the WKCR live stream, where brave student journalists advise us listeners to tune in via FM radio, if we can, because the influx of listeners is overwhelming the website. The website has crashed twice now, but it’s back, as a student reporter describes how cops in riot gear are pushing all the press away from the scene. Breathless, they report “no one is here left to document,” the storming of the campus by NYPD. “No one is here.”
Dispatched reporters call into the radio station to describe the dystopian situation in real-time, although this dystopia is common in American now, this fascist, heavily militarized response to protest, in NYC and around the country. The police in Israel and the U.S. share tactics. That feels especially poignant now, that these tactics used to kettle and tear-gas students are well-learned from decades of oppression of Palestinian people, the routine razing of their homes. A student journalist reports that they can’t see the road at all, it’s “a sea of riot gear police officers, not a speck of road to be seen, just riot police.” The NYPD is storming the campus after a wave of protests, across the country and world, calling for their schools to divest, to stop participating in funding the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
On the channel in the other room, and uptown, the Knicks. Madison Square Garden. Spectacle. The show must go on, the show does go on, I can hear it in the background. Do these events occur in the same space? It feels utterly impossible that they can. And yet they do. I hear a blare, it’s going into overtime. Another blare and then radio silence, the reporters can’t seem to get through to the radio station. Arrests have started. This is Tuesday in America.
Police are likely there, at MSG, protecting buildings from rowdy fans. Or maybe, and it seems like it, the entire force is uptown. They are using mechanical ladders, it looks like, affixed to the side of the occupied buildings. The full might of the police state unleashed upon students for being on the right side of history. For demanding the university care more about not being complicit in genocide than in appeasing their wealthy donors. (I am sure, somewhere, a wealthy donor is watching the game, or front row at MSG, shaking his head that his storied university is allowing such antisemitic and dangerous activity.)
The only dangerous activity present: the police, dressed and ready for war, emboldened by the government and the university, with no one supposed to be watching, the pavement is blocked by riot gear. The official email from Columbia has just come in, blaming protestors for escalation. The radio station has cut out again. I read how the students occupying Hamilton Hall, once named after Alexander Hamilton, renamed it to Hind’s Hall in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old girl killed by Israel while trying to flee Gaza.
The station is coming in and out, but it’s back. We’re listening.
A reporter has begun to break down: the end of the email states the police will be on campus through May 17, until after graduation. The reporter apologizes, saying she can’t imagine police presence there on campus that long. “It’s unprecedented,” another says. The connection is unstable, but we can still hear you, we’re listening.
Links:
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaSJP/status/1785192140999377376
https://twitter.com/PeoplesForumNYC/status/1785464367989043246
https://twitter.com/EmpireFiles/status/1785416795324887287
https://twitter.com/McMisoprostol/status/1785407423718510898
Other universities (very abridged, more soon)
https://twitter.com/PplsCityCouncil/status/1785372113681187309
https://twitter.com/prem_thakker/status/1785397144515469402
https://twitter.com/delaney_nolan/status/1785434224528441389
Thank you for this, very very well written
All love to the students, my heart overflows with gratitude for their bravery and conviction! 💗💗💗