Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Dick It Happen Here, a podcast coming to
Speaker 2: you from a week where decades are happening. I'm your
Speaker 2: host Nia. Long with me is James Stout Hi May
Speaker 2: great to be here and also with us as Talia Jane,
Speaker 2: an independent journalist covering social movements and protests who is
Speaker 2: currently covering the Gaza solidarity encampments at Columbia University. Talia,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, guys.
Speaker 3: Hey, thanks for doing you guys.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited. I'm excited to talk about the Columbia occupation.
Speaker 2: I also want to briefly mention that there are a
Speaker 2: lot of there's been a wave of occupations of campuses
Speaker 2: across the country just right now. This is being recorded
Speaker 2: on Wednesday night. By the time this goes up on
Speaker 2: like Friday, a lot of the stuff we're going to
Speaker 2: be saying is probably going to be at a date
Speaker 2: because everything's moving really quickly. But I mean there's occupations
Speaker 2: obviously like Columbia. There's like CSU, Humboldt, University of Texas,
Speaker 2: at Austin, Ohio, State Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, some University in Italy,
Speaker 2: Emerson Tuffs, MIT, NYU, City, University of New York, the
Speaker 2: New Schools, University of Rochester, University of Pittsburgh USC, University
Speaker 2: of Minnesota, University of Michigan, Vanderbilt UNC, Chapel Hill. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's so many of these. By the time that this
Speaker 2: goes up, there will be more of them. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: been wild. There's been a lot of I mean at
Speaker 2: Humboldt there was a lot of very intense fighting with
Speaker 2: the police. A bunch of kids occupied a building. They
Speaker 2: beat the shit while Okay, that's going a bit too far,
Speaker 2: but they barricaded it, kept the cops from coming in,
Speaker 2: cops ran off of campus. So, lots of incredibly wild
Speaker 2: stuff happening. Yeah, which I guess brings us to the
Speaker 2: Gauza the I guess the original one, the first one
Speaker 2: they got a lot of media attention, the Gauza Solidarity
Speaker 2: Acampment at Columbia.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, Telly, I wanted to ask you, so, how did
Speaker 2: this sort of start and what's kind of been making
Speaker 2: it different from the really pretty large number of other
Speaker 2: Free Palestine anti genocide protests that have been on campuses
Speaker 2: and off campuses for the past, Like time at six
Speaker 2: seven months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think the genesis of this was that
Speaker 1: Columbia University, as we've seen in universities across the country,
Speaker 1: suspended a number of pro Palestine advocacy student groups. They
Speaker 1: were very slow to move their feet about targeted attacks
Speaker 1: against students who were demonstrating for Palestine, including an incident
Speaker 1: where someone was allegedly sprayed with a chemical irritant, or
Speaker 1: people were sprayed with a chemical irritant by former IOF
Speaker 1: soldiers who are also students here. And just this, you know,
Speaker 1: building tension of there is a actual genocide occurring, and
Speaker 1: universities are being forced to bend towards the people committing
Speaker 1: the genocide instead of standing on the right side of history,
Speaker 1: or they're actively choosing to do that too, because their
Speaker 1: whole thing is not about actually educating people and preparing
Speaker 1: them to be tomorrow's leaders and managers or baristas, but
Speaker 1: to get people, you know, to give them money to
Speaker 1: fill their coffers and portray this image of you know,
Speaker 1: exceptionalism and elitism and whatnot. So that was the genesis.
Speaker 1: And then on Tuesday night I got a text at
Speaker 1: like eleven pm, I want to say, asking me if
Speaker 1: I wanted to come cover a late night slash early
Speaker 1: morning de occupation demo. And this was from someone I'd
Speaker 1: never talked to before. I had no idea who it was,
Speaker 1: but they said it was a Columbia and they said
Speaker 1: it was late night, early morning. I thought I'd be
Speaker 1: out of here at you know, ten am the next day,
Speaker 1: and then, you know, standing there witnessing it all unfold,
Speaker 1: it became pretty evident that that was not the case.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why this stands out is
Speaker 1: because this is an elite university where you can't say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: these are just dumb TikTok kids. These are kids who
Speaker 1: have like the these are like adults who have you know,
Speaker 1: they have incredible resumes, really high academic excellence. They got
Speaker 1: into an extremely difficult school to get into, and they
Speaker 1: are joining the ranks of the you know, frazzled fringe,
Speaker 1: stinky anarchists and the silly kids who are being brainwashed
Speaker 1: by TikTok. And they said, like, no, those people are right,
Speaker 1: like this is bad and you need to disclose and
Speaker 1: divest and we're not going to stop until you do.
Speaker 1: And I think that that stance from a position of
Speaker 1: fledge really shook things up. What followed also set a
Speaker 1: tone of the university deciding to call the police and
Speaker 1: claiming that this encampment was it posed a clear and
Speaker 1: present danger to the safety of students on campus, which
Speaker 1: you know, anyone who has spent any length of time
Speaker 1: in or around the encampment can plainly see that that
Speaker 1: is nonsensical. It's absurd. These are kids that are studying
Speaker 1: on a lawn. But that choice of bringing the NYPD
Speaker 1: in and having one hundred and eight students arrested by
Speaker 1: the NYPD Strategic Response Group, which is their you know,
Speaker 1: counter terrorism goon squad that violently represses protests pretty consistently,
Speaker 1: to have them arrest one hundred nate people, including carrying
Speaker 1: them out from by their arms and lengths and arresting
Speaker 1: legal observers. You know that that was like this is
Speaker 1: that it was an outsized response for something that was straightforward.
Speaker 1: They're hanging out on a lawn. They have everything set
Speaker 1: up to sustain within that space. They are not going
Speaker 1: out and roaming around and you know, breaking things or
Speaker 1: assaulting people or anything like that, and they're just using
Speaker 1: this to call attention to their cause, which is divestment
Speaker 1: from genocide and from you know, war profiteering and to
Speaker 1: and the school's gentrification of Harlem and to you know,
Speaker 1: a institute an academic boycott of Israel and Israeli campuses
Speaker 1: that are in community with Colombia, like their satellite schools,
Speaker 1: that bring the IOF soldiers to Colombia to commit harm
Speaker 1: against students here. And you know, so these are these
Speaker 1: are very basic asks and they were met with state force,
Speaker 1: signed off by the president of the school. And seeing that,
Speaker 1: I think is what provoked a lot of other schools
Speaker 1: of like Columbia's doing it. Then we definitely got to
Speaker 1: because you have a major elite institution taking this step
Speaker 1: making clear that this is not just a cause that
Speaker 1: you know, the scrappy little weirdos at the bottom like
Speaker 1: me care about, you know. And so I think that's
Speaker 1: what set it off. And the fact that they returned
Speaker 1: they just took over the other lawn while while their
Speaker 1: classmates were being processed after being arrested, they just took
Speaker 1: over the other one and they're like, all right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna set it up here was such a hilariously like
Speaker 1: based move that it was like the defiance and the
Speaker 1: determination was undeniable. And when you see a group like
Speaker 1: with the students at Humboldt, where the cops with the
Speaker 1: riot shields are trying to barge in and they're pushing
Speaker 1: them back and they're screaming get the fuck out, and
Speaker 1: they're bonking them over the head with the empty water jug.
Speaker 1: When you see things like that, yeah, when you see
Speaker 1: things like that, it's very like there is an energy
Speaker 1: to this that has always been there but that has
Speaker 1: not been very easily seen by the masses, and we're
Speaker 1: now seeing it show its head of like, no, we're
Speaker 1: not fucking around, like you need to listen to us.
Speaker 1: We're tired of the song and dance game that you're
Speaker 1: doing dismissing all of our valid concerns because we know
Speaker 1: concretely and statistically that we are on the right side
Speaker 1: of history, and we're going to make you listen and
Speaker 1: trust that if you beat us up, we're coming back.
Speaker 1: Like we're not going away. It doesn't scare us, which
Speaker 1: is what the kids at a UT Austin were chanting.
Speaker 1: I think when they brought the horses and the state
Speaker 1: troopers in. It's like, we're not scared of you. And
Speaker 1: that tone has permeated throughout the demonstration's four Palace to
Speaker 1: New Liberation since in prior to October. But if you
Speaker 1: don't follow the protests, or if you only go by
Speaker 1: what the major news outlets are saying about them, you
Speaker 1: don't see that tone. So this, for me, is not surprising.
Speaker 1: This is a continuation of an energy that has not
Speaker 1: ceased for upwards of six months. I think it's the
Speaker 1: two hundred and first day of the genocide. So it's
Speaker 1: not surprising for people who've paid attention. It's a relief
Speaker 1: for kids who are here and who have been involved,
Speaker 1: and who have been silenced and ignored and written off
Speaker 1: this whole time. It's a very long answer.
Speaker 3: I know that's a good one, though. I think it's
Speaker 3: a It's great to have your perspective if someone who's
Speaker 3: been on the ground. One thing I wanted to ask is, like, obviously,
Speaker 3: this is a protest that its core is about state violence,
Speaker 3: and it has predictably enough, been responded to with state violence,
Speaker 3: And like you said that, people were really not swayed
Speaker 3: by that. I wonder if you've seen people who kind
Speaker 3: of had the opposite reaction, Like I kind of remember
Speaker 3: the student protests that I have been involved in. I'm
Speaker 3: just going to say that, and I can remember, like
Speaker 3: the reaction by students when seeing that fellow students being
Speaker 3: assaulted by the police was like, okay, fuck this, Like
Speaker 3: you know, like Georgio Wah has this thing about like
Speaker 3: when I see a real flesh and blood worker of
Speaker 3: fighting is natural lending me the policeman. I don't have
Speaker 3: to ask myself what side I'm on, Like did you
Speaker 3: find the same thing with students where they were like okay,
Speaker 3: I wasn't out here. And now I've seen the way
Speaker 3: the university and the cops have responded to this, and
Speaker 3: now I'm coming out because it's not okay.
Speaker 1: The encampment went up Wednesday and it was forcibly removed
Speaker 1: with arrests on Thursday, I think, or was it Friday.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. It was a long time ago. For me,
Speaker 1: it's fine, But prior to the encampment being taken down,
Speaker 1: the possibility of it provoked a significant response from the
Speaker 1: student body here at Columbia to show up and rally
Speaker 1: around the encampment all night. They did this march, this
Speaker 1: daisy chain where they were chanting. The more you try
Speaker 1: to silence us the louder we will be and disclose, divest,
Speaker 1: We will not stop, We will not rest all night
Speaker 1: around the encampment to keep it safe and to show
Speaker 1: that they had larger support beyond the students who chose
Speaker 1: to stay on the lawn at risk of being arrested.
Speaker 1: After they were arrested, more students came onto the other
Speaker 1: lawn and have continued to occupy that second lawn. So
Speaker 1: absolutely it was a strissand effect. They tried to shut
Speaker 1: it down, and it made people feel very strongly that
Speaker 1: they need to show up and put themselves on the
Speaker 1: line as well. And they also I think they saw
Speaker 1: what I think it also showed them what the state
Speaker 1: does and what the university does, and seeing it firsthand
Speaker 1: eliminates a lot of the mystery that, you know, the
Speaker 1: fear that can circulate of like the uncertainty of it.
Speaker 1: Seeing what it looks like, they're like, oh whatever. And
Speaker 1: now they're seeing, you know, videos of protesters being brutalized
Speaker 1: on other campuses, and like I heard, someone told me
Speaker 1: last night. They said that they overheard someone like talking
Speaker 1: to another student on the lawn and they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: so you a jail support They're like, yes, you're there,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's this sort of they're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: do what they're gonna do. We don't care, like because
Speaker 1: these are the threat of violence. Physical harm, is a
Speaker 1: threat to cease whatever it is that you're doing, of
Speaker 1: academic harm. These are things that are trying to get
Speaker 1: you to stop doing what you're doing. And when you
Speaker 1: know that they are being deployed as tools and tactics,
Speaker 1: you're not going to stop because they're not scary to you. Well,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do. You're gonna suspend me for
Speaker 1: joining in a historic protest? Okay, see if I care,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's the energy for a lot
Speaker 1: of students.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unfortunately we need to go to ads for a second,
Speaker 2: but I don't know, skip them and we'll be back
Speaker 2: in however long it takes you to press the forward
Speaker 2: button like six times and we are back. So, something
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask about. I've been seeing a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff floating around about the negotiations that are happening
Speaker 2: between the university and the students. I want to know
Speaker 2: what have you actually heard about these because the statements
Speaker 2: that have been coming out don't seem to really be
Speaker 2: matching anything else I've seen going on on the ground.
Speaker 2: Do you know what's happening.
Speaker 1: So the university has taken a stance of this is
Speaker 1: clearing present danger, It is disruptive, it is harmful, et cetera.
Speaker 1: That's because it's impeding with them building stairs and stadium
Speaker 1: seating for the commencement that's happening in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's like that's that's the clear and
Speaker 1: present danger is that it's costly for them to have
Speaker 1: to wait to complete this this setup. But my understanding
Speaker 1: is that the students are very much holding their ground,
Speaker 1: very firm, and their their demands are very reasonable. It's saying, like,
Speaker 1: tell us where your money comes from, so we can
Speaker 1: look into it and see that you're keeping your nose clean.
Speaker 1: This isn't a difficult to ask. I think if you
Speaker 1: ask to see my receipts, I could hill to you.
Speaker 1: Although I'm not an elite university, but I'm also not
Speaker 1: you know, profiting off of weapons manufacturing. And so the
Speaker 1: university's stance is very much trying to kind of spook
Speaker 1: them into quitting. And there was a statement released by
Speaker 1: the president last night at four am, saying that the
Speaker 1: students made some concessions, two of which were things that
Speaker 1: they're already doing, one of which was an easy adjustment
Speaker 1: that's not a concession, which was just making the camp
Speaker 1: more ADA accessible and in compliance with FD and Y
Speaker 1: regulations for fire safety, which I think would be crazy
Speaker 1: if a fire broke out at this camp. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: was a tangent. And then there was a thing saying
Speaker 1: that they're going to be ending negotiations in forty eight
Speaker 1: hours and with the students reported out from those negotiations
Speaker 1: at the time was at the university at around midnight
Speaker 1: threatened to call in the National Guard and to call
Speaker 1: in the NYPD, and that shut down negotiations. And it
Speaker 1: was only after they put out these wide spread calls
Speaker 1: and thousands of people gathered on the lawn in support
Speaker 1: of the encampment that that was changed and the university
Speaker 1: agreed in writing to not call the YPD and to
Speaker 1: not mobilized National Guard, which I don't think they have
Speaker 1: the authority to do regardless, but it was this written
Speaker 1: concession from the university, and their perspective of it was
Speaker 1: that the students provided concessions, and I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of it speaks to who each side is speaking to.
Speaker 1: The students are speaking to the movement that they have
Speaker 1: kind of shepherded into existence, and the university is speaking
Speaker 1: to their donors and their trustees and the right wingers
Speaker 1: who are having nuclear meltdowns on Twitter.
Speaker 2: That's something else I wanted to sort of ask about,
Speaker 2: because I it's kind of hard for me to a
Speaker 2: sense of it. Like, Okay, so house Bike Johnson, who
Speaker 2: is a utterly deranged session Zionist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like you mean the new Churchill mea god like
Speaker 4: real weirdo, like anti evolution guy he's been he said,
Speaker 4: he said that like he's going to go to.
Speaker 2: Congress and call for the National Guard deplay, which also
Speaker 2: does it make any sense because Congress I don't can't
Speaker 2: do it either, But I think you're trying to get
Speaker 2: like the governor, But like, what what do you think
Speaker 2: of the actual odds of a national guard to point?
Speaker 2: Because I've heard a lot of talk about it and
Speaker 2: I can't gauge it at all.
Speaker 1: So Hochel has said that that's not on the table,
Speaker 1: I believe, and there's no interest from what I can
Speaker 1: tell of the actual elected reps in calling in the
Speaker 1: National Guard. There is interest from Eric Adams, who is
Speaker 1: a former cop and basically still a cop, to use
Speaker 1: the NYPD, and the NYPD has been very allergic to
Speaker 1: when the National Guard comes out here because they want
Speaker 1: to be the ones cracking skulls and being in charge
Speaker 1: of brutalizing New Yorkers, and they take a great offense
Speaker 1: when someone else comes in and does it for them,
Speaker 1: So they wouldn't really be on board with the National
Speaker 1: Guard mobilizing here either. The school doesn't have the authority
Speaker 1: to do that. It's only the governor. The governor hasn't
Speaker 1: made any indication, and Mike Johnson is doing conservative stunt work.
Speaker 1: He was joined by Elise Staphonik, who is a conservative
Speaker 1: and you know she regularly disseminates disinformation and inflammatory propaganda
Speaker 1: to demonize unhoused people, migrants, queer people. So it's no
Speaker 1: surprise that they're you know, banging this drum, which was
Speaker 1: also pushed by Shy davidy or however he pronounce his name,
Speaker 1: who's an assistant professor here, who attempted to hold a
Speaker 1: rally in the center of the Cause of Solidarity encampment
Speaker 1: with a slew of Zionists and his ID card was
Speaker 1: deactivated and he found out in real time time in
Speaker 1: front of a bunch of cameras that he called to
Speaker 1: come watch him. It was It's one of those things
Speaker 1: that you witness in real time that you feel like
Speaker 1: you're you're living in a movie. But it was great.
Speaker 1: And he had a nuclear tantrum and claimed that it
Speaker 1: was because he wasn't safe on campus when he was
Speaker 1: told that his protest was not safe for their students. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: rhetoric and a lot of saber rattling from the far right,
Speaker 1: from conservatives, from people who have never had any kind
Speaker 1: of support for Palestinians or for the cause of Palestinian liberation.
Speaker 1: You know, Mike Johnson makes he receives over a quarter
Speaker 1: million dollars from APAC. You know, these are these are
Speaker 1: not people whose statements should be taken seriously in the
Speaker 1: context of what is possible, what is reasonable, and what
Speaker 1: is you know, reality to put it nicely, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a reason it's fascinating, like, at least
Speaker 3: to me, Like I went to a fancy university, you know,
Speaker 3: and engaged in plenty of including pro Palestine actions when
Speaker 3: I was there. But a thing that I see, like
Speaker 3: as a journalist now, is that the right wing and
Speaker 3: wealthy folks generally seem to see that Ivy League universities,
Speaker 3: particularly in the US, is like their safe space. And
Speaker 3: I think the reason that they're so mad at this
Speaker 3: is that they feel like it's not just that it's happening,
Speaker 3: it's it's where it's happening, and like that that's called
Speaker 3: them to have these massive tantrums like you've reported on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's the there's there's it's it's all
Speaker 1: hypocrisy for them because on the one hand, these are
Speaker 1: liberal universities who are ushering in an era of DEI
Speaker 1: and purple hair and queer kids. And then on the
Speaker 1: other side, these are sacred spaces of learning and higher
Speaker 1: education that no one should have access to unless they're
Speaker 1: you know, grandparents are in the Arian Brotherhood. So it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where it kind of depends
Speaker 1: on the day about how they feel about really elite
Speaker 1: campuses of higher learning. But it doesn't matter either way.
Speaker 1: They don't care. They don't actually care. They just hate
Speaker 1: the cause and will do anything they can to bring
Speaker 1: it to a halt. But the DNA of this cause
Speaker 1: is to keep going regardless of the efforts to stop it.
Speaker 3: Right, And it wasn't so long ago that everyone was
Speaker 3: up in arms. When I say everyone on the right
Speaker 3: was up and arms about campus free speech, which is
Speaker 3: something that seems have likely been forgotten in the last
Speaker 3: couple of weeks. It's like, we've all seen videos in
Speaker 3: Texas today, right of the DPS and state troopers and
Speaker 3: horses and bikes. So they lived to missuse bikes. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's I guess the hipocoty is kind of the point
Speaker 3: with those people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like Mike Johnson made his speech today
Speaker 1: on the steps of the Low Library. He was talking
Speaker 1: about how you know there was a repression of free
Speaker 1: speech on campus, but then in the same breath he
Speaker 1: said that and that's why I want to call in
Speaker 1: the National Guard to eliminate this protest. Their argument is
Speaker 1: that this protest is inherently anti Semitic because it rejects
Speaker 1: the state of Israel and the genocide and apartheid that
Speaker 1: the state has been doing since its inception and prior
Speaker 1: to its inception of the Palestinian people, and in the IHRA.
Speaker 1: In the IHRA definition of anti semitism, it is any
Speaker 1: criticism of the state of Israel, which would include people
Speaker 1: who are living in Israel criticizing their own government would
Speaker 1: be labeled as anti Semitic. And they're trying to redefine
Speaker 1: reality in real time by claiming that these students who
Speaker 1: just don't want for mass death to be occurring and
Speaker 1: they don't want their university to be responsible in facilitating that,
Speaker 1: are somehow anti Semitic. Meanwhile, a large number of them
Speaker 1: are Jews themselves, who you know they held satter at
Speaker 1: the start of Passover.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, uh maybe do you know bing One,
Speaker 3: a photojournalist, Yeah, withtual friend being being took this photo,
Speaker 3: which went viral on Twitter. I stories in the New
Speaker 3: York Times of a Jewish graduate student just like sitting
Speaker 3: on a folding chair being like, now I'm fine, I
Speaker 3: don't feel unsafe here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean that's like, That's the thing is
Speaker 1: that the people who feel quote unquote unsafe are also
Speaker 1: the people who are known antagonizers of pro Palestine demonstrations.
Speaker 1: These are the kids that bought like fart spray from
Speaker 1: Amazon to spray on students who were demonstrating peacefully. These
Speaker 1: are students who show up with giant flags outside of
Speaker 1: Columbia University to antagonize people. They brought thick wooden poles
Speaker 1: with flags fixed to them to a demonstration on Wall
Speaker 1: Street the week prior to this encampment launching, and they
Speaker 1: were antagonizing people, They were getting in, they were trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, instigate arguments with people, and you know, they
Speaker 1: were just kind of trying to incite, and then they
Speaker 1: claim to be victims when people respond to their inciting behavior,
Speaker 1: and it's very much like an abusive mentality that they have.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like actual anti Semitism, all of that,
Speaker 1: all of that rhetoric ends up being a distraction from
Speaker 1: actual instances of anti Semitism. And the more that you
Speaker 1: try to fuse the political ideology of Zionism with the
Speaker 1: prejudice against Jewish people for being Jewish, the more you
Speaker 1: try to fuse those together as one thing, like you know,
Speaker 1: fusing Jewish identity to Zionism, the more you see instances
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism actually antisemitism. So, if anything, like the
Speaker 1: students who are coming in cheering on Israel and boasting
Speaker 1: about the murderers of you know, tens of thousands of children,
Speaker 1: the starvations and the displacements of millions people. The more
Speaker 1: that they do that, the more that teaches people like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe all Jews are like that, maybe all Jews are bad.
Speaker 1: And then I end up getting DMS from people photoshopping
Speaker 1: my face into an oven calling for my death when
Speaker 1: you know, I don't give a fuck about the state
Speaker 1: of Israel. I don't give a fuck about any states,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's just it's it's one of those
Speaker 1: things like this is like they are they are planting
Speaker 1: toxic seeds and then flipping out when they sprout.
Speaker 3: Talking of toxic seeds, now is the time for some
Speaker 3: marketing professionals to plant some toxic seeds in your mind.
Speaker 3: As we take our second advertising break. All right, well
Speaker 3: we're back. I hopeully haven't bought anything since we last spoke, Tylia.
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk a little bit about a thing.
Speaker 3: Thing that we've seen a lot is like this idea
Speaker 3: of like the universe, and this happens at every protest
Speaker 3: movement right like the state, the university, whatever. Will seek
Speaker 3: to appoint people leaders and allow them to negotiate on
Speaker 3: behalf of everyone, even if those people have not consented
Speaker 3: to be negotiated for, and then they'll use that to
Speaker 3: corrupt the movement, offer concessions that these particular people might want,
Speaker 3: and in doing so kind of defang the original sort
Speaker 3: of protest. Is that something that you've seen happening or
Speaker 3: the university's tried to do to like divide people or
Speaker 3: to kind of pull people out and appoint them as leaders.
Speaker 1: They've suspended the people that they believe to be primary
Speaker 1: student organizers, but in terms of other divisions, they have
Speaker 1: not been successful. These are students organizing with their classmates.
Speaker 1: It's not possible for some outside group to infiltrate that
Speaker 1: space because they are not students at this university. You know,
Speaker 1: there's SJP chapters that students are members of in their schools,
Speaker 1: but they are ultimately making the choices of what their
Speaker 1: SJP chapter is doing. And you know a lot of
Speaker 1: those SJP chapters have been suspended. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: think in terms of the possibility of the university having
Speaker 1: any sort of in to build some sort of op
Speaker 1: is very low. The solidarity that we're seeing is I
Speaker 1: don't think I've seen levels of people on the same
Speaker 1: page and able to organize the literacy of it is
Speaker 1: just phenomenal. You know, there's people who are just they're
Speaker 1: all very like clearly knowledgeable about what it is that
Speaker 1: they're organizing for, what the risks are, what the history
Speaker 1: of the movement is, and they've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time learning those things to make sure that when they
Speaker 1: decide to take a step forward, that they are doing
Speaker 1: so fully informed and fully empowered. And trying to break
Speaker 1: that down is something that has not been successful. And
Speaker 1: we've seen that, you know, time and time again. They
Speaker 1: have this chance. The more you try to silence us,
Speaker 1: the louder we will be. And it's true, and these
Speaker 1: institutions should probably start believing it because it would save
Speaker 1: them a lot of trouble by you know, trying to
Speaker 1: write this off is something that you know, people don't
Speaker 1: know what they're doing or you know, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: because they are they know everything. They know everything. These
Speaker 1: are kids that all they do is study, you know,
Speaker 1: like you're talking about huge nerds joining into a massive,
Speaker 1: you know, decades long social movement. They've done the reading.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talking people who's done the reading. I wanted to
Speaker 3: talk about like faculty because I know a lot of
Speaker 3: people who are faculty at university's listened to this podcast,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure they're interested in, like how faculty have
Speaker 3: been in solidarity with students there, how they can be
Speaker 3: in solidarity with their own students. Have you seen that?
Speaker 3: Have you seen faculty showing up?
Speaker 1: Oh? Oh yeah. There was a massive faculty walk out
Speaker 1: the other day between Barnard and Columbia faculty members. The
Speaker 1: schools are kind of related, They're right across the street
Speaker 1: from each other, and they have a lot of overlap.
Speaker 1: Barnard's kind of under slightly under the university the Columbia umbrella,
Speaker 1: but still has then president and things like that. And
Speaker 1: there was a huge faculty walkout from both campuses that
Speaker 1: gathered on the Low the steps of the Low Library,
Speaker 1: and it was easily hundreds I would say, maybe like
Speaker 1: five hundred people and that was it. That was it
Speaker 1: Columbia and then NYU. The students set up an encampment
Speaker 1: and they were surrounded by faculty who had linked arms
Speaker 1: as a as a datacy chain around the encampment to
Speaker 1: protect the students. So we're seeing a very real, you know,
Speaker 1: multi layer of solidarity emerging in these spaces, And I
Speaker 1: think it's you know, even if the even if professors
Speaker 1: and faculty don't necess cssarily wholly agree or wholly understand,
Speaker 1: they're not fully on the same wavelength as the student organizers. Necessarily,
Speaker 1: they're still showing up on the basis of, like, these
Speaker 1: students of the right to express their opinions, and they
Speaker 1: should not be getting met with severe academic or state
Speaker 1: discipline for doing so, because we've seen these same campuses
Speaker 1: open their doors to people like Charlie Charlie Kirk and
Speaker 1: Gavin McGinnis and you know, like white supremacists and white
Speaker 1: nationalists who are able to go on their campuses and
Speaker 1: spread hate and you know, right going disinformation and try
Speaker 1: and recruit people through their you know, Young Republican School chapters.
Speaker 1: Those chapters aren't being disbanded. You know, there's there isn't
Speaker 1: an urgent rush to prevent the hosting of white nationalists
Speaker 1: and white supremacists and you know, people who are.
Speaker 5: Actually and intensely anti Semitic to an extreme, they're not
Speaker 5: doing anything to actually like prevent those people from appearing
Speaker 5: on campus. So I think that there's there's a lot
Speaker 5: of layers to it, but there is a very strong
Speaker 5: surge of faculty saying like, hey, this is this is
Speaker 5: fucked up, and we're not We're not going to let
Speaker 5: you think that this is just kids that you're picking on,
Speaker 5: like you're also attacking your own staff, who you know,
Speaker 5: has a longer relationship to.
Speaker 1: The university, has a you know, as hard as it
Speaker 1: is as it is for these kids to get into
Speaker 1: the school, it's harder to get hired to work here,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we're seeing a lot of that.
Speaker 1: There's also security people who were put in charge of
Speaker 1: evicting students from their rooms at Barnard because Barnard has
Speaker 1: chosen that students at Barnard who participated in this demo,
Speaker 1: they weren't only going to be suspended temporarily, but evicted
Speaker 1: from their housing, banned from campus, unable to access any
Speaker 1: food or meal plans. Where is the Columbia students have
Speaker 1: been suspended are still able to access housing and meal plans,
Speaker 1: but they aren't allowed to go to class or any
Speaker 1: campus events, which is fine because the only one that's
Speaker 1: happening right now is the encampment. But you know, there
Speaker 1: was there was a security person who sent me email
Speaker 1: to the school at Barnard saying like I quit, like
Speaker 1: this is this is inhumane, this is undignified, this is crazy.
Speaker 1: You're giving these students fifteen minutes to uproot themselves from
Speaker 1: their rooms. They might not have another place to go.
Speaker 1: These you know, these might be students who don't have
Speaker 1: a family's house nearby or you know, or the funds
Speaker 1: or the means to live somewhere else and not worry
Speaker 1: about the cost. You're you know, destabilizing people's lives in
Speaker 1: a very severe way. And this this you know, security
Speaker 1: person resigned. They're like this is nuts. So I think
Speaker 1: there's there's the fact that just the the overall what
Speaker 1: is of how these universities are responding has provided a
Speaker 1: type of solidarity. And then there's also the fact that
Speaker 1: a lot of people just generally understand that genocide is bad,
Speaker 1: and it's gotten to a point where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of rhetoric trying to obscure that and obfuskate like what
Speaker 1: is genocide? And you know, israel isseroid t exist in
Speaker 1: all this other like bullshit like propaganda and disinformation and
Speaker 1: you know, fear mongering and all these things. And people
Speaker 1: can see very clearly what the game is, and so
Speaker 1: we're kind of at a pivotal moment for just common
Speaker 1: reality and critical thinking. And I think that we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of people show that the efforts to alter
Speaker 1: what our established common reality is is not working.
Speaker 2: And this brings means is the thing I wanted to
Speaker 2: close on, which is, where do you see this going?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm gonna need a minute on that one. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we're at a very pivotal moment
Speaker 1: in history. There's a lot of comparisons being made to
Speaker 1: protests against the Vietnam War, and in those protests, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of state violence, a lot of state repression,
Speaker 1: but there was also a lot of people willing to
Speaker 1: throw down in a very intense way. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're already seeing levels to that that have very very
Speaker 1: strong parallels, you know, with Lake Aaron Bushmell, which is
Speaker 1: also a story that I ended up breaking. And you know, like,
Speaker 1: so this is this is big, and I think that
Speaker 1: right now, in the midst of it, it's hard to
Speaker 1: guess what's going to happen two weeks from now or
Speaker 1: six months from now. But I guarantee you we all
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen fifty years from now. We're
Speaker 1: all going to look at this fifty years from now
Speaker 1: and be like, Wow, Stay was on some dumb shit.
Speaker 1: Those parts were right, and it's good that they didn't
Speaker 1: stop totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a great place to end, Talia.
Speaker 3: I wonder if you would like to let people know
Speaker 3: where they can find you, where they can read your work,
Speaker 3: how they can support your work.
Speaker 1: Sure, so I mostly report live on Twitter, Talia otg
Speaker 1: as in on the ground, and you can support me
Speaker 1: by signing up on Patreon for hopefully more than five
Speaker 1: dollars a month. Those those small donations cover the entirety
Speaker 1: of my living and survival and allow for me to
Speaker 1: do this work for the past four years. So I'm
Speaker 1: like incredibly grateful. You know, people can support on Patreon.
Speaker 1: They can also if you just want to do like
Speaker 1: a one time heard you on the pod and loved it.
Speaker 1: I have like a PayPal and a Venmo and all
Speaker 1: that other shit on my Twitter account if people want
Speaker 1: to send a couple couple bucks that way, And you know,
Speaker 1: another way to support is send me tips if you
Speaker 1: if you decide that you're gonna do something, feel free
Speaker 1: to you know email and bio. I always I always want.
Speaker 3: To know Senda, all your all your tips, especially if
Speaker 3: you're at Columbia University. Anything else do you want to
Speaker 3: plug or me or anything else need to do before
Speaker 3: we go.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that my voice sounds really like this. It's
Speaker 1: I don't think i've I haven't gotten a lot of sleep,
Speaker 1: and I hope that everything I said was coherent, even
Speaker 1: though I was just giving you essay after essay after essay.
Speaker 3: It was fantastic. Thank you so much, Shallie.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and thank you guys. It's something
Speaker 2: I could say from everyone that they could happen here.
Speaker 2: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Speaker 6: Fuck him, fuck him up, keep yeah, fucking get him.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production the cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen here, updated monthly at
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