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Notes -
I'm at Penn Law.
I went to the protests tonight as a legal observer because there were reports that arrests were "imminent." While I was there, the encampment organizers designated a "red" group- those who WANTED to be arrested - from a "yellow" group - those WILLING to be arrested. The distinction concerns me; there are people actively SEEKING to get arrested.
We didn't currently have an active police presence, so it would take some time for a police force large enough to arrest anyone to show up. By the time enough police had gathered, those unwilling to get arrested could leave.
The admin has been clear they will only arrest non-Penn affiliates. The majority of protestors are not Penn affiliated - we are the meeting point for Temple and Drexel SJPs also, as our campus gets the most national attention because people sometimes realize we aren't Penn State. In addition, there are plenty of "community members" who are non-students heavily involved. I'd estimate approx. 15% of the total people were Penn affiliates, and maybe 50% were students at all.
Arrests have still not been made (there was a pro-Israel dude who walked through earlier with a pocket knife who got a citation but that's about it). I left after the chants shifted to "Al-Qassim make us proud, kill another soldier now" and "we don't want no two state, we want '48." I think the protestors are genuinely upset that the police have left them alone this entire time. I don't know if it's a resume line item checklist - "getting arrested for social justice ❤️💙" might play well for a political career? - or just people making reckless decisions. I'm scared, and tired, and finals start tomorrow.
Only 14 people in the encampment of 200 paused for the call to prayer at dusk. None of the prayer individuals were masked. The leaders of the protest, from what I could tell, were a Latino and a white woman (with purple hair, not that that really matters). The Latino led everyone in a chant of "we are all Palestinian." What happened to cultural appropriation?
There was a "protest against hate speech" or whatever earlier by the Pro-Israel crowd. The pro-Israel crowd were the first time I had seen American flags brought into this at all. They remembered where we were, what we actually had power over. None of them were masked, either.
Almost the entire pro-Palestine group was masked (I hesitate to call them pro-Palestine instead of pro-Hamas after the Al-Qassik chants). The three exceptions in the pro-Palestinian group were those who engaged in the call to prayer, the Latino leader, and the "red" group. If you aren't willing to show your face for a cause, to have your name associated with it, do you really believe in it at all?
I don't know anything anymore. One of the 19 year olds who stood next to me as the first tents were going up a few days ago, James, asked me what "encampment" meant. I thought he was joking, or at least asking what it meant in this specific context. No, actually. He, a sophomore at Penn, genuinely has never heard the word before. These are our best and brightest.
Past a certain level, there is no such thing as an organic protest. There are professional organizers somewhere in the background and they've got their tactics and strategies all worked out after a few generations of experience of this kind of thing.
The history of political movements is full of this. This is the way political activism should be done. Not the social media-esque FFA we've been having, where everyone just broadcasts the stupidest toxoplasma they can get their hands on.
Now- i can't say whether they're organizing and planning their arrests with strategic competence, but I'm happy to hear at least some of them have realized that every successful civil rights movement prior actually did employ disobedience strategically.
I was trying really hard to figure out how the “Future Farmers of America” were involved.
If you'd played quake like I did instead of doing schoolwork you'd immediately guess it means free for all
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