"The student doth protest too much, methinks"
Cosplaying a revolutionary doesn't envision a noble warrior ... it just makes you look deluded.
Protester: “Infatada! Death to America!”
(… But pay off my student loan first!”)
Now that the tents, masks, signs and Stanley Quenchers have been cleaned up and bulldozed away, here’s a message to the student protesters and activists from us normies, the body politic and even your fellow students …
However sincere and ‘right’ you believed in your cause, you lost the plot.
Many think you never had the plot in the first place.
Your movement lacked gravitas and failed to land for a lot of reasons … some due to your own reckless behavior, and some because of your enablers — mainly administrators and faculty. And given the number of non-student protesters who got cuffed, it also appears you got played.
Both on and off campus, people simply got tired of your act.
(Issues important to age group 18-29)
Imaging, “Optics” and Opinion
I’m a former P.R. guy, a profession that in yesteryear was known as a “flak.” I know a little bit about imaging, strategies for generating awareness, how to interact with media, and maybe most importantly, creating effective messaging.
Public relations is about shaping perception — the most recent term for it is “optics.” You want to show people your best side to get them to believe in your message.
That said, I’ll be honest in my opinion. And it is my opinion only, something everyone has … along with a specific part of human anatomy.
You were ‘cringe’ to watch. The optics were bad. You produced the same visceral response as a toe stub on a cold morning. A fart in an elevator. Any affirmation you might have received from standing on principles and leaning on your First Amendment rights dissipated with your behavior. It was Kabuki theater played out on the nightly news, and it failed to win hearts and minds.
Cosplaying a revolutionary is a whole lot different than being a revolutionary.
You pissed it away because of your immaturity, gullibility, and insufferable virtue-signaling. Cosplaying a revolutionary is a whole lot different than being a revolutionary. Instead of being seen as agents of change, or the outraged voices of moral conscience, you came off as self-indulgent privileged rich kids being led around by the nose ring by a host of sketchy players.1
Oh, the chanting. The irony is thick; you didn’t realize it, but the incessant “repeat after me” chorus was not an act of defiance, it was a pledge of compliance. Years ago, Monty Python poked fun at this “follow the leader” naïveté in their brilliant satire of cultism in Life of Brian…
Brian: “You’re all individuals!”
Mob: “Yes! We’re all individuals!”
Brian: “You’re all different!”
Mob: “Yes! We’re all different!”
Are you speaking “truth to power,” or do you just think you look really cool in a keffiyeh?
And isn’t that what you call “cultural appropriation?”
… you didn’t realize it, but the incessant “repeat after me” chorus was not an act of defiance, it was a pledge of compliance.
And for the love of Allah, next time don’t answer when a reporter shoves a microphone in your face. Have the self-awareness to know your locution skills are limited — most anything you say will come off as callow and sophomoric. And remember, the media were there because standoffs with police and acts of rebellion make great pictures and sound bytes. But so does footage of trainwrecks, tornadoes, floods and fatal accidents.
You weren’t raising awareness. You were human clickbait.
“Civil Disobedience”
I get it. I know all about Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (1849). I taught it in American Lit.
The transcendental naturalist/essayist first posited the concept of non-violent protest when citizens believe their government is no longer acting on their behalf. It gives them the “moral right” to intentionally and openly refuse to obey a government's laws, orders, or demands.
It was first delivered as a speech, then later as a published essay. Both Gandhi and Martin Luther King cited “Civil Disobedience” as an influence in their activism.
Thoreau’s causes were just … he was anti-slavery and against the federal government’s aggression in the Mexican-American War. He was young, too … 31 at the time. But Thoreau understood that with his actions would come consequences. He knew there might be a price to pay for non-compliance.
What did Thoreau do? What was his #Resistence? He refused to pay a tax, specifically a poll tax, and was jailed for a couple of days until an anonymous benefactor paid the duty on his behalf. Afterward, Thoreau retreated the the boonies to become one with nature and produced his magnum opus Walden: Life in the Woods, in 1854.
Perhaps the protesters at Columbia, UCLA, Emory and other universities should have followed Thoreau’s example. Pack up your tents, camp out in the woods, and cry out for Intifada to the squirrels and woodpeckers.
Blocking freeways, plopping on a campus lawn, chanting and screaming obscenities at passers-by was not the optimal way to call attention to injustice. You should have been treated as a parent does a petulant infant — ignored until you tired out from hysteria. I know. I had three of them.
Divest!
By the way, next time you demand your school “divest” from its interests in Israel, you first might want to check your parents’ indexes and stock portfolios. You’ll be shocked to find out their mutual funds — i.e. your college fund — have lots and lots of Zionist ties.
So, if you object to your family’s money spigot, perhaps you can colonize their living room, put on your mask, issue your demands and see how Mom and Dad react. Maybe they’ll help you divest from that university and stop paying your tuition.
Final word
In our country, the sanctity of protest is hard to question. Protest is concomitant to the First Amendment and the right to peaceful assembly. To my mind, both are correspondent to American Gospel. Nothing in our history supersedes “We the People…”
So using the voice of protest to bring injustice to attention is among your rights. As Jefferson said, they are “self-evident” and “unalienable.” But what is often unspoken, unwritten or ignored is there can be a price or a consequence for these actions. Sometimes they are misguided and ill-advised. Standing up for injustice may be in your mind morally right, but not when you break the law and overstep the rights of others.
Today’s pro-Palestinian protesters are their own worst enemies; breaking codes of conduct and denying fellow students from going to class is not First Amendment-protected protest. It’s being a public nuisance. Not to mention the open and obvious Scarlett Letter treatment of anyone wearing a Star of David.
And face it, it’s pretty hard to sympathize with an Ivy League sophomore paying — or their parents paying — $75K a year in tuition while threatening a hunger strike as an act of “solidarity.”
And face it, it’s pretty hard to sympathize with an Ivy League sophomore paying — or their parents paying — $75K a year in tuition while threatening a hunger strike as an act of “solidarity.”
The conflict between Israel and Gaza is ugly, messy and bloody. Nothing right about it. Rather than play both sides-ism, or declare who is right and wrong, perhaps it’s better to point to one immutable and historical truth: there is no morality to war. Ever.
Some day you’ll learn not to suffer fools lightly. But for now, all of the theater, rhetoric and political claptrap has accomplished mostly public scorn, and for some, a criminal rap sheet. You might think about those things as you step into the real world.
Not good optics.
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Jim Geschke was inducted into the prestigious Marquis Who’s Who Registry in 2021.
Fact check: Tablet Magazine https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/tablet-magazine/
Well written, Jim.
We all know these protests are being underwritten by shady NGOs all across the country, and some over in the mid east.
If these scholar students were serious about protesting, they should’ve marched on Capitol Hill. That’s where the money comes from to drop all the bombs.
Well played my brother. I never knew all of those years teaching next to you that I was amongst a literary and social conduct genius! Sort of a Lewis Grizzard (A Great American) without the benefit of being Ga born and bred! I`m exposing my IB kids to this mockery with the hopes that it will enhance their ability to actually think their way through life instead of being sheep. The struggle is real....and continues for me but one more year.