kendra
Well-known member
I'm curious about what people think about student protests. There was a building occupied at San Francisco State, this was following an occupation at Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. I happened to be there that day and heard the protest taking place. It amazed me how much vitriol and hate was taken out at the protesters/occupiers by the news and bloggers on news pages.
What I saw was a bunch of students fed up with the misallocation of funds within the school (to administrators and to the president of the university who has already been caught embezzling funds yet was not prosecuted). They have been accused of being self-centered because they took the business building and demanding action happen, but when I was there and what I read from the blog was everything but self centered- things like rehiring lecturers, having decisions of what classes to cut to be transparent, etc. There were not many students who appeared angry about the demonstration (I didn't see any myself) and many faculty were actually supportive of the occupation, but the people interviewed by the news were the few who were upset.
Now I know that I should have been a child of the 60's so I may have a rosy view of the protests going on at colleges then, but it doesn't seem like those had the same sort of hate aimed toward the protesters. What do you think the change is, or was there the same sentiment during the 60's? Also what do you think about student protests in general, are they a waste of time or are they ever helpful?
I graduated from SF State a year and a half ago, personally I'm proud of the occupation- it is San Francisco and they do have a long history of this sort of action, I'm glad to see it continue. There was no violence and minimal damage to anything. I'm always interested in what makes people respond in certain ways to things, especially if the response is different from my own so I'm trying to wrap my head around the responses to this!
the occupiers blog
one of the news stories about it
What I saw was a bunch of students fed up with the misallocation of funds within the school (to administrators and to the president of the university who has already been caught embezzling funds yet was not prosecuted). They have been accused of being self-centered because they took the business building and demanding action happen, but when I was there and what I read from the blog was everything but self centered- things like rehiring lecturers, having decisions of what classes to cut to be transparent, etc. There were not many students who appeared angry about the demonstration (I didn't see any myself) and many faculty were actually supportive of the occupation, but the people interviewed by the news were the few who were upset.
Now I know that I should have been a child of the 60's so I may have a rosy view of the protests going on at colleges then, but it doesn't seem like those had the same sort of hate aimed toward the protesters. What do you think the change is, or was there the same sentiment during the 60's? Also what do you think about student protests in general, are they a waste of time or are they ever helpful?
I graduated from SF State a year and a half ago, personally I'm proud of the occupation- it is San Francisco and they do have a long history of this sort of action, I'm glad to see it continue. There was no violence and minimal damage to anything. I'm always interested in what makes people respond in certain ways to things, especially if the response is different from my own so I'm trying to wrap my head around the responses to this!
the occupiers blog
one of the news stories about it
