Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of zipe Rider.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, when in doubt, I can always count
Speaker 1: on Miles.
Speaker 2: Great, the only child who didn't have headphones.
Speaker 3: Why were we talking about night rider recently?
Speaker 2: Because you were talking about if a cab includes night Rider?
Speaker 2: I think, okay, and then we're like, yeah, because like
Speaker 2: a billionaire like made the cop, Like the cop got shot,
Speaker 2: and then the billionaire shot in my face. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then the bonaire the vanity.
Speaker 1: To it because Michael Knight, Yeah, Michael Knight like got
Speaker 1: to choose how handsome he was, and he chose to
Speaker 1: look like David Hasselhoff, Like he that was like a
Speaker 1: self sculpted face. But also like the fact that it
Speaker 1: was a billionaire. Now, knowing what we know about billionaires, like,
Speaker 1: you can't trust it. He probably had that cop shot
Speaker 1: and then had his base designed to look like someone
Speaker 1: that he thought was handsome. Just kind of putting it
Speaker 1: all together. Now, anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien. That's
Speaker 1: Miles Gray. This is the episode where we tell you
Speaker 1: what is trending, and we actually have a very special
Speaker 1: trending episode because one of the things that is trending,
Speaker 1: of course, is the student protests happening across the country
Speaker 1: that started at Columbia University, or at least like a
Speaker 1: big portion of the coverage has started at Columbia University.
Speaker 1: And we are thrilled to be joined by a former
Speaker 1: producer of this show, currently in grad school for journalism
Speaker 1: at Columbia University. She's been doing some reporting on the
Speaker 1: student protests. Please welcome back to the show, Trician Moukarch.
Speaker 4: Having me back, It's so fun to be back here
Speaker 4: right so long, I don't know.
Speaker 2: And look at like yeah, and suddenly when like super
Speaker 2: producer Anna was like, y'all, Tricia's at Columbia and she's
Speaker 2: like up in it right now, like we should talk
Speaker 2: to them, like yeah, because when you look at the
Speaker 2: coverage of the student protests, depending on where you get
Speaker 2: your news, it could be either a peaceful protest or
Speaker 2: it could be a thing that's rife with anti semitism,
Speaker 2: or it could be so violent, but it may be
Speaker 2: the cop Like again, I think with everything surrounding the
Speaker 2: situation in Gaza, like there's just so many realities people
Speaker 2: are experiencing, or at least different realities are being represented
Speaker 2: and presented to them. But for you being on the
Speaker 2: ground and it's happening at the university you're currently attending.
Speaker 2: Can you just like give us an idea just sort
Speaker 2: of like how it all started, because I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people will just say, like these kids are
Speaker 2: like Hamas sympathizers who have lost the plot, or they're
Speaker 2: people who don't know what they're doing and it's like
Speaker 2: a fad. Can you just tell us, like how like
Speaker 2: point A to now where we're at, Like the escalation
Speaker 2: is clear now that students have like barricaded themselves into
Speaker 2: a building, Like it's it's like this is not.
Speaker 5: Going away in any kind of normal way, But how
Speaker 5: did it all? Like walk us through this for a second?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think that this has been a conversation
Speaker 4: on campus for a long time, like long before October seventh,
Speaker 4: and long before the last two weeks. It's just that
Speaker 4: in the last two weeks, the whole country's attention has
Speaker 4: zoomed in on the section of like two or three blocks.
Speaker 4: But people have been protesting for Palestine long before that
Speaker 4: as well. So I'll start just a little bit further back.
Speaker 4: On October seventh, there were big protests on campus, both
Speaker 4: from the pro Israel side and from the pro Palestine side,
Speaker 4: and each group was in its own separate area and
Speaker 4: kind of chanting and being together. There was a lot
Speaker 4: of pain in the air. But since then there have
Speaker 4: been several propost time protests. There's been a huge amount
Speaker 4: of I think like discrimination and kind of danger to
Speaker 4: those student protesters. Right from the very beginning around October seventh,
Speaker 4: there were these trucks that would constantly circle around campus
Speaker 4: with the faces of those students and their names and
Speaker 4: their personal contact information and their addresses, and those are
Speaker 4: being circulated everywhere essentially to encourage people to docs and
Speaker 4: threaten the propostime protesters.
Speaker 3: Do you say trum.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like at Harvard. We saw them at Harvard. I
Speaker 5: remember seeing the ones that was happening at Harvard.
Speaker 2: Where they were like pull on LCD screens that were
Speaker 2: basically like video billboards docsing people exactly.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, it's like this black truck like who knows
Speaker 4: who owns it. But besides are just these massive screens
Speaker 4: where they like play propaganda and I see.
Speaker 3: I'm assuming Iran on is it right?
Speaker 1: Iran is funding most of this, most of what's happening
Speaker 1: at Columbia. According to some mainstream media, who is being
Speaker 1: docs who is being kind of threatened in this way?
Speaker 1: Is it students on both sides, on the pro Israel
Speaker 1: and the pro Palestine side.
Speaker 4: In my experience and understanding from the students that I've
Speaker 4: talked to, it's really been targeted at pro Palestine protesters,
Speaker 4: in pro Palestine students who have been protesting since October seventh,
Speaker 4: and I should say completely peacefully. They've been gathering on
Speaker 4: the steps and like having waving flags and stuff. But
Speaker 4: so those people were targeted, and the university took no
Speaker 4: real actionable steps to address that their students were being
Speaker 4: threatened with really violent things. And then it, you know,
Speaker 4: people kept protesting. And then there was an attack a
Speaker 4: few months ago where several people who were former IDF
Speaker 4: soldiers used a chemical weapon to attack pro Postinian protesters
Speaker 4: on campus, and several of those students had to go
Speaker 4: to the hospital for several days because they're extremely nauseous,
Speaker 4: they couldn't breathe right, they felt extremely lightheaded. And to
Speaker 4: think that there was a literal chemical weapon attack against
Speaker 4: pro Palestinian students on campus, or for that matter, any
Speaker 4: students on campus, it just like and that's something that
Speaker 4: wasn't covered by media.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that's like the skunk attack that I
Speaker 6: feel like, Yeah, I remember reading about and like I
Speaker 6: remember there's one version that was like it was some
Speaker 6: kind of chemical irritant, and then like in herrets, there
Speaker 6: were people saying that it was just a non toxic
Speaker 6: fart spray that the person purchased on Amazon.
Speaker 5: So you're like, what what's happening? Like what like? So
Speaker 5: is what what?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: So this year we're talking about people who actually were
Speaker 2: injured this like back in January and are still like
Speaker 2: recovering from that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think there's like students have said that there's long
Speaker 4: term effects of something like that, and I know that
Speaker 4: there was. I don't want to say an exact number
Speaker 4: and have that wrong, but there are several students who
Speaker 4: were hospitalized for several days as they were trying to
Speaker 4: be stabilized. So it wasn't just some joke kind of
Speaker 4: spray that you can buy at the dollar store. This
Speaker 4: is something that's really dangerous. And I also wanted to
Speaker 4: say that the Columbia administration has been sending emails since
Speaker 4: October seventh to the whole school basically condemning anti Semitism,
Speaker 4: but not addressing any of the attacks or dosing or
Speaker 4: the other things that has been happening to Arab and
Speaker 4: Muslim and Palestinian students. And so I think a lot
Speaker 4: of that is because of outside influences or the Columbia
Speaker 4: president recently testified in front of Congress, and we have
Speaker 4: a lot of doughnuts who are very insistent about how
Speaker 4: the school should act. But it's just it seems like
Speaker 4: a lot of the media coverage and the school has
Speaker 4: been very like it has just been ignoring how a
Speaker 4: lot of students on campus feel when they protest for gossip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like one version, like I'm just looking
Speaker 2: at how the media has even talking about it today.
Speaker 5: It's like very disingenuous and flippant. The New York Times
Speaker 5: was like trying to be like we know, like let's
Speaker 5: let's break it down for you. Why these demonstrations are
Speaker 5: just spreading so rapidly, and they're like calling it like contagious,
Speaker 5: like they're like it's almost like a disease, sort of
Speaker 5: like context that they're trying to set this up.
Speaker 2: As there are people like in the Free Press, they
Speaker 2: there's a there was an article called camping out at
Speaker 2: Columbia's Communist Coachella.
Speaker 5: I'm guessing that's not the energy.
Speaker 2: Like, can you just sort of talk to specifically, like
Speaker 2: what students are experiencing, because so many people are wanting
Speaker 2: to be dismissive of of how students are organizing on
Speaker 2: campus and being like they're just doing it to fit
Speaker 2: in man, you know, and there's a lot of peer
Speaker 2: pressure for young people and they're not real they.
Speaker 5: Don't really know what's going on. Is that true?
Speaker 4: I think it's it's very different than it. What was
Speaker 4: it a communist Coachella?
Speaker 2: Yeah, camping out of Colombia's Communist Coachella.
Speaker 3: Yes, they had to, and is the sign of a
Speaker 3: good writer.
Speaker 1: As you've probably learned in journalism schools, that's probably the
Speaker 1: first thing they teach here, like sick headlines equal vast alliteration, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very credible to add the literation, completely credible. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: that that is not the situation at all. It's been
Speaker 4: quite well organized. And the students who are leading the protests,
Speaker 4: many of them are Palestinian and have family and friends
Speaker 4: and loved ones who have been killed in Gaza, And
Speaker 4: I think like to say that this is just some party,
Speaker 4: and like students who want to feel in on the
Speaker 4: hot topic of the day, is really dismissive to those experiences.
Speaker 4: And also all the students who kind of feel the
Speaker 4: pain of their classmates and an ongoing genocide and are
Speaker 4: showing up to support.
Speaker 2: Them, right because it like it's not just yeah, because
Speaker 2: I feel like there's so many other things, like especially
Speaker 2: for young people entering adulthood, looking at what their lives
Speaker 2: are going to look like post academia, and being like,
Speaker 2: is this even like a functioning society I'm entering, Like
Speaker 2: I feel like there's so many levels of frustration that
Speaker 2: young people are experiencing, especially on college, that this is
Speaker 2: just like this swirling perfect storm of many things. But
Speaker 2: right now seeing a NonStop like anyone on social media
Speaker 2: is having to see just horrific image after horrific image
Speaker 2: of what's happening in Gaza, and like, how I don't
Speaker 2: understand how some people in the MEETERI are like and yeah,
Speaker 2: they think it's like some fad rather than like these
Speaker 2: people are deeply a fect by what is happening, and
Speaker 2: they're trying to exercise some amount of power over the administration.
Speaker 2: Because can you like also tell us, like what you
Speaker 2: know the demands of like the why is also being
Speaker 2: the bunch of people are coming in with all kinds
Speaker 2: of takes, like they're paid actors or they're not, or
Speaker 2: they don't know what.
Speaker 5: They're doing, or they don't even know what they want.
Speaker 2: But can you speak to specifically, like what the demands
Speaker 2: are of the students of Columbia in regards to what
Speaker 2: is happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think, like as you were saying, Maths,
Speaker 4: what's happening outside the gates is very different than what's
Speaker 4: happening inside the gates. So when you hear people like
Speaker 4: yelling violent things, that's probably outside the gates and those
Speaker 4: people aren't really in line with the actual demands of
Speaker 4: the protesters inside the gates. Where I've been on campus
Speaker 4: for the last two weeks and it's been very peaceful.
Speaker 4: It's been students sitting in their tents and like doing
Speaker 4: their homework and studying for finals. And they're there to
Speaker 4: demand two main things. One is to disclose Columbia's investments
Speaker 4: in Israel and the others to divest and Columbia has
Speaker 4: had several movements for divestment, most notably in South Africa
Speaker 4: and so the students are following a similar model for that.
Speaker 4: And I think the third main call to action is
Speaker 4: they want the university to give amnesty to students who
Speaker 4: are arrested by the NPD. This is over one hundred
Speaker 4: and eight people I think were arrested and those students
Speaker 4: are being suspended, evicted with very very little notice or
Speaker 4: even expelled. So they want amnesty for those students who
Speaker 4: are peacefully protesting, literally just sitting on the lawn when
Speaker 4: the NPD came and took them away.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about Columbia, students have pushed for
Speaker 1: divestment in South Africa. That was during the apartheid period
Speaker 1: of South Africa in the eighties and they successfully, you know,
Speaker 1: they were on the right side of history. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're able to push Columbia University to do that correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the most recent development is that the students
Speaker 4: last night took over Hamilton Hall, which is one of
Speaker 4: the buildings on campus. And that's the same building that
Speaker 4: students in decades past have taken over to demand investment
Speaker 4: or protest against segregation and all these other big social
Speaker 4: problems that looking back on it on the past it's
Speaker 4: like of course, like of course they were right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's take a quick break and we'll come
Speaker 1: back and keep talking about this.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back and we're back and yeah.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, it feels like we're seeing conflicting reports,
Speaker 1: Like we're seeing reports that the student protesters are like
Speaker 1: well funded sleeper cells, they're committed anti semi And obviously,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, like there is anti Semitic things being
Speaker 1: chanted outside of the gates right, like as not not
Speaker 1: a part of the student protests, but anti Semitism is real,
Speaker 1: is a is.
Speaker 3: A real problem.
Speaker 1: Obviously, it's not part of this movement that people want
Speaker 1: it to be a part of, or that some some
Speaker 1: forces won't want it to be a part of. But
Speaker 1: can you just talk a little bit more about kind
Speaker 1: of what you're hearing from from the students who you
Speaker 1: who you're talking to and like sitting with you said,
Speaker 1: they're they're studying. There's also people in pain who have
Speaker 1: like lost family members to this conflict. But what yeah,
Speaker 1: what what else are you saying?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so on on campus, it's like you walk in
Speaker 4: and on one of the lawns, there's all these like
Speaker 4: really right tents, like and largely it's like students kind
Speaker 4: of sleeping there, study being there, reading there on the encampment.
Speaker 4: At times, it's been really a joyful and happy environment.
Speaker 4: I was speaking to someone of Pastinian heritage who said,
Speaker 4: being on the encampment and getting messages from his loved
Speaker 4: ones in Palestine and like having that connection being built
Speaker 4: is one of the safest and like most kind of
Speaker 4: liberated he's felt in many years. There's been a lot
Speaker 4: of singing and dancing. There were performances from all the
Speaker 4: various student dance groups, and there's been like a big
Speaker 4: Shabbat dinner and celebrations for Passover. There was a moment
Speaker 4: when for Shabbat dinner, some of the Jewis students who
Speaker 4: had been suspended came to the gate, and then the
Speaker 4: jewistudents who were inside also came to the gate, and
Speaker 4: of course the suspended students weren't let in, but they
Speaker 4: kind of shared their meal and their like their space,
Speaker 4: even despite the divide. So it's been a lot of
Speaker 4: just kind of like yeah, showings of solidarity, showings of joy,
Speaker 4: and in terms of what people are saying. In the beginning,
Speaker 4: before the NYPD came, it was a group of students
Speaker 4: who had, I think, were very intensely supporting the pro
Speaker 4: Palestine movement. After that, a lot of students who hadn't
Speaker 4: been that involved came because they were like, no matter
Speaker 4: what your stance on the issue is, it's not right
Speaker 4: for a university president to call that NYPD in to
Speaker 4: arrest its own students. Even when the NYPD, of all
Speaker 4: people were like, they're totally peaceful, they're just getting cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were actually pretty chill.
Speaker 2: You want to say, knock them for setting up tents,
Speaker 2: It's like, no, get them, they're violent.
Speaker 5: They're like they're playing drums and stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and violent. We have quotloose rules here.
Speaker 1: People might start dancing and men who knows what happened,
Speaker 1: then freedom may abound.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So even then, MYPD, we're kind of
Speaker 4: like why are we here? Like why are we doing this?
Speaker 4: And I think that motivated a lot of students, a
Speaker 4: lot of professors to come out and like stay in
Speaker 4: the enkempment. And since then, I mean, the media again
Speaker 4: portrays it as this constant chaos and violence and anti Semitism,
Speaker 4: and yes, there is a lot of that happening, especially
Speaker 4: outside of the Gates but largely it's been people just
Speaker 4: like living life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's what's kind of it's so hard, right,
Speaker 2: because there's been this you know, people talk about how
Speaker 2: anti Semitism is being weaponized against people who are merely
Speaker 2: trying to advocate for, you know, the autonomy and safety
Speaker 2: of Palestinian people. And I'm like, what's that experience for
Speaker 2: you and other students who are like caught in this,
Speaker 2: Like you know, like you're you're morally outraged and you're
Speaker 2: trying to express that and next thing, you know, you
Speaker 2: find yourself being like confronted by the NYPD because that
Speaker 2: the administration.
Speaker 5: Is calling for that help. Like does this make students?
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously the students are very resilient because it
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like things are like diminished in any way.
Speaker 5: They're in fact, they're escalating.
Speaker 2: But like, is the feeling of like optimism, is it
Speaker 2: outrage mixed with optim you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 2: what is what's that kind of emotion like for everybody involved?
Speaker 2: Because yeah, Like to your point, it's become the focus
Speaker 2: of the entire nation now, especially as campuses all over
Speaker 2: the country are now also having their own encampments and
Speaker 2: things like that, But like what, like what is that
Speaker 2: feeling in terms of like what the end game is
Speaker 2: or like how achievable the the goals of these encampments are.
Speaker 4: I think there is there is a sense of optimism.
Speaker 4: It's hard to say that there's any one kind of
Speaker 4: overarching feeling because there's so many different views. And I
Speaker 4: certainly know students who are very perturbed about the whole situation.
Speaker 4: There's people who like graduated during COVID and they really
Speaker 4: wanted a graduation and it seems unlikely now that that
Speaker 4: will happen, and everyone is kind of like running on
Speaker 4: low sleep and high stress. But I think in terms
Speaker 4: of the protesters themselves, they see that what they're doing
Speaker 4: is echoing history. They are optimistic and determined, and from
Speaker 4: my interviews with protesters, they're not going to take shit
Speaker 4: from the university. The university has tried to get them
Speaker 4: to stop. They came to the encampment with all these
Speaker 4: forms saying like if you leave by two pm yesterday,
Speaker 4: so April twenty ninth, then they'll be okay. Otherwise they'll
Speaker 4: be suspended and maybe expelled and basically banned from university property.
Speaker 4: But there is just a vote and it was immediately
Speaker 4: like yes, we're staying. So I think that kind of
Speaker 4: reflects the fact that these students are determined, they are optimistic.
Speaker 4: And even in the South Africa protests, students occupied buildings
Speaker 4: for days before the university agreed to divest or agreed
Speaker 4: to like even think about divesting, so they realize it's
Speaker 4: not a quick thing. They realize that I'll take sustained
Speaker 4: time and effort.
Speaker 2: It's like wild to see because I just can't, like
Speaker 2: I just think of my own experience going to college
Speaker 2: like nearly twenty years ago or beat twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: It's like my freshman year and you enter a college
Speaker 2: campus like there to like explore ideas and to like
Speaker 2: begin to express yourself and the ways that you're like
Speaker 2: and all these things that you're learning by going to college,
Speaker 2: and like to be in a situation now where that
Speaker 2: environment has been completely like flipped on its head and
Speaker 2: now it's like hostile and just is it's like really
Speaker 2: fucked up to just see that and then just to
Speaker 2: see like this, like to now see the administrations of
Speaker 2: some of these schools just be hand in hand with
Speaker 2: like militarized police just feels like a complete fucking just
Speaker 2: just all kinds of fucked up that I'm like, that's,
Speaker 2: oh my god, it must fucking suck so bad for
Speaker 2: these kids.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, like they're they're driven.
Speaker 2: By a like a higher moral purpose than merely like
Speaker 2: lamenting the fact that like what has our school become.
Speaker 2: But also this is because they there's there's something very
Speaker 2: real and they're they're tangible outcomes that they're seeking.
Speaker 1: Really adds color to this idea that we've heard people
Speaker 1: talk about the universities are you know, hedge fund and
Speaker 1: real estate companies with like an academic apparatus attached to them.
Speaker 1: It's like you're you're seeing that very sharp distinction where
Speaker 1: the hedge fund, you know, billion dollar you know, endowment people,
Speaker 1: and you know, the president to a lot of times,
Speaker 1: the you know, Larry Summers was the president of Harvard,
Speaker 1: like Larry's lover's the guy who is now just like
Speaker 1: spokesperson for capitalism and fuck you to everybody else. But
Speaker 1: like it really just kind of puts into perspective like
Speaker 1: what these institutions actually are because it's not like the
Speaker 1: faculty is out there being like, yeah, get the fuck
Speaker 1: out of here and with the students, yeah, the learned people,
Speaker 1: and then the more operational, capitalistic actors are at the top,
Speaker 1: working with military police trying to Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think that's also reflected in the stuff we learned. So, like,
Speaker 4: we have this thing at Columbia called the Core curriculum,
Speaker 4: So I went there as an undergrad as well, and
Speaker 4: it's basically all the philosophy and literature that led us
Speaker 4: to Western society. And in decades past it's been very,
Speaker 4: very non critical, like there's been no discussions of colonialism
Speaker 4: or all the things that have gone wrong.
Speaker 1: And actually students protested on Western by the way, I
Speaker 1: should just clarify the listener.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that didn't translate to audio. So actually, like
Speaker 4: I believe in the nineties, students protested to diversify that
Speaker 4: whole Core curriculum and what we learned. So we added
Speaker 4: a few scholars who are non Western, and that's still
Speaker 4: a work in progress. It's still largely old, dead white men,
Speaker 4: but we have read some like Edward said and Gandhi
Speaker 4: and Franz Finan, and a lot of students are like,
Speaker 4: what is the point of discussing all of this in
Speaker 4: a critical light? If we can just sit in our
Speaker 4: classrooms and like theoretically muse about this using big words,
Speaker 4: but we can't go out and protest with the ideas.
Speaker 2: That we've learned, right, Yeah, it's a yeah, it's funny too,
Speaker 2: because I've seen Fenon's work be also like weaponized to
Speaker 2: be like that this guy is just also preaching violence
Speaker 2: and like not really taking the totality of what friends
Speaker 2: Fanan's work is to just be like and this is
Speaker 2: the handbook that these students are operating of off of,
Speaker 2: when I've seen more like fear mongerie type articles that
Speaker 2: are completely trying to obscure like what's happening. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, we see this all the time.
Speaker 2: When people really begin to question and threaten the status
Speaker 2: quo of something like you get this huge, outsized response
Speaker 2: because you can see white supremacists have their demonstrations and
Speaker 2: the police are escorting them and because that's just a
Speaker 2: pillar of what American ult it's First Amendment man. But
Speaker 2: then you have kids peacefully protesting and now we're talking
Speaker 2: about like just full on goon squads coming out to
Speaker 2: clear out like these these encampments, and it's just I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like it's so wild because at the same time
Speaker 2: you have these lead people in leadership are like what
Speaker 2: what what's getting into these kids' minds. It's like the
Speaker 2: ship that they're experiencing on the backs of the policies
Speaker 2: you create.
Speaker 5: It's not a it's not a mystery.
Speaker 2: It's like they're made to live in the same world
Speaker 2: and they have their analysis is just coming online much
Speaker 2: quicker than generations past who didn't quite have all of
Speaker 2: this information available to.
Speaker 5: Them, like at such speed. Yeah and efficiency.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thanks to TikTok's right, Trisia, I have to
Speaker 1: assume all the protesters are just on TikTok at all times,
Speaker 1: waiting and say they're not, but it is. I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about how like movies are an important gauge
Speaker 1: for like America's like conscious and unconscious biases, and just
Speaker 1: thinking about like how protesters are treated in a lot
Speaker 1: of mainstream movies, like especially in like the nineties.
Speaker 3: Just like think of like PCU.
Speaker 1: Have you guys seen PCU, Like where it just treats
Speaker 1: it's like a university where it's like everything's like so
Speaker 1: politically correct, and like all the protesters are just like
Speaker 1: people are protesting, like what their lunch order is and
Speaker 1: so dismissive. But even like in Forrest Gump, like when
Speaker 1: he goes to the National Malt for like and like
Speaker 1: there's a massive protest happening, like they just portray it
Speaker 1: as like people following along in lines randomly, and like
Speaker 1: they portray like the Black Panther Party is like there's
Speaker 1: this one part where like a Black Panther leader is
Speaker 1: like shouting at Forrest Gump about like what he's angry about,
Speaker 1: and Forrest Gump leaves and the Black Panther leader keeps
Speaker 1: shouting at the space Forrest Gump left, like he's like
Speaker 1: an anger automaton. And it's just like there's this mainstream
Speaker 1: sort of thing that's like we object to student protesters
Speaker 1: on the fact that they're annoying to us, right, you know,
Speaker 1: like they just like don't want to hear it, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty frustrating. And I feel like you see some
Speaker 1: of that coming out like where like there's just like
Speaker 1: this rush of different angles that are critical of the
Speaker 1: student protest movement. It's like they're you know, like I
Speaker 1: was saying, it's like they're organized and like being paid
Speaker 1: by terrorist organizations. They're actually just doing it for like Instagram.
Speaker 1: They're actually like doing it so well that it's covering
Speaker 1: up like some of the real news that's happening. That
Speaker 1: was one that like I saw recently, there's like a
Speaker 1: big op edge in I think it was the La
Speaker 1: Times where they were like student protesters, well, well meaning
Speaker 1: are like distracting from the real crimes that are being
Speaker 1: committed over there, but like so what they should not
Speaker 1: protest those crimes? Yeah, because like isn't that a mainstream
Speaker 1: media problem, not a student's trying to draw attention to
Speaker 1: the problem problem.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's also like this pettiness from the
Speaker 2: media because in a way, the students are doing their body. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're imbiding the outrage. Even an objective journalist should have
Speaker 2: or not necessarily that you have to editorialize and have
Speaker 2: outrage within your reporting, but to at least objectively state
Speaker 2: what is happening, why people are doing it, and like
Speaker 2: what what the actual stakes are, rather than trying to
Speaker 2: obfuscate and try and be like, well, you know, some
Speaker 2: people said some really anti semitic stuff, So I think
Speaker 2: all these kids are actually just anti semitic, And it's like,
Speaker 2: did you have you actually, are you reporting on the
Speaker 2: amount of Jewish students.
Speaker 5: That are also participating in these demonstrations.
Speaker 2: Because that would also put a huge dent in that
Speaker 2: very like you know, the lazy narrative that is used
Speaker 2: to discredit what's happening. So yeah, I feel like there's
Speaker 2: this part of it too that I mean, because in
Speaker 2: a way I feel it like not like this envy,
Speaker 2: but I'm I'm like, fuck, man, I didn't have my
Speaker 2: shit together like that when I was in college, Like
Speaker 2: I didn't, like I knew what was wrong with the world,
Speaker 2: but they're just it just wasn't at that place where
Speaker 2: it was there was there were opportunities to do that
Speaker 2: all the time, like aside from like the Iraq War
Speaker 2: and other demonstrations that I participated in, or like marriage
Speaker 2: equality and things like that. But in that moment, I'm like,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I'm like, damn man, like these they're fucking
Speaker 2: doing the right fucking thing right now for the right reasons,
Speaker 2: or you know, I'd say ninety five percent of the
Speaker 2: kids are right, and.
Speaker 5: There's something to that.
Speaker 2: I feel like, I'm sure on some level of the
Speaker 2: media like it forces them to look at themselves too
Speaker 2: and be like these kids are looking at how power flows,
Speaker 2: how hegemony works, how like finances work, how you know,
Speaker 2: how US foreign policy puts people in danger, and they're
Speaker 2: reacting to it in a way that you know, maybe
Speaker 2: we spent too much time talking about WMDs and yellow
Speaker 2: Cake and completely fucking missed the whole point, And now
Speaker 2: you have a group of kids who were like, dude,
Speaker 2: we're not falling for the same shit anymore. So anyway,
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm I hope that this ends in the
Speaker 2: way that the students want and for, in a way
Speaker 2: that is justice oriented and not you know, just not
Speaker 2: seeing just more just violence, state sanctioned violence.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Definitely think the protesters themselves have been a little
Speaker 4: like upset that coverage on them, the fact that every
Speaker 4: all the cameras in the country have turned towards them
Speaker 4: rather than what's actually happening in Gaza. But also they
Speaker 4: feel the need to speak up. So I guess that's
Speaker 4: something like we have control over our media diets, so
Speaker 4: we can also make sure to to keep the situation
Speaker 4: in Gaza.
Speaker 3: I think they should just go home. They should just
Speaker 3: go home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're actually making it like I can't even even
Speaker 1: like think right now from your protesting just leave me
Speaker 1: alone now. Amazing, Well, Trisha, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming back, and hopefully we can we can stay in
Speaker 1: touch and kind of keep talking to.
Speaker 3: You as the situation develops.
Speaker 5: But yeah, oh, and also you were going to mention
Speaker 5: like we're you know, for people who are interested in
Speaker 5: getting out object you understanding of what is happening, Like
Speaker 5: where should you where do we want to direct people
Speaker 5: to kind of begin their information gathering?
Speaker 4: So I think social media is just so poisonous in
Speaker 4: terms of delivering news about all of this, so I'd
Speaker 4: be very wary of that. I found actually one of
Speaker 4: the best places to go is the student newspapers. So
Speaker 4: I know, like the Columbia Daily Spectator might not be
Speaker 4: in your normal media diet, but like the Columbia Newspaper
Speaker 4: is doing an amazing job. All of the other student
Speaker 4: newspapers across campuses are doing really really good jobs of reporting,
Speaker 4: and often they're the only ones with access inside campus.
Speaker 4: So check out those. And then I just wanted to
Speaker 4: plug a Twitter account that some of my fellow journalism
Speaker 4: students are running. It's CJS Underscore fact Check, and what
Speaker 4: they're doing is basically looking at a lot of the
Speaker 4: news on social media that's being posted, and a lot
Speaker 4: of those things are like pictures from ages ago or
Speaker 4: just complete misrepresentations of what's happening. So if you want
Speaker 4: to see what's true and what's not, check out that
Speaker 4: Twitter and follow it and they'll be keeping as updated.
Speaker 2: If you are going to go on social media, go
Speaker 2: to that one. Yeah, because at least that one isn't
Speaker 2: horrific and full of shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I get all my sports news from the Columbia Student Newspaper,
Speaker 1: so that's already consider me a follower already. That's where
Speaker 1: I get my big gambling tips.
Speaker 4: We're sports team. So yeah, thanks, thanks so much, Jack,
Speaker 4: Thank you mos.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, definitely good seeing Nutricia again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my heart there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and other students, uh, and I hope you know
Speaker 2: you're just more power to all of you, because it's
Speaker 2: this is not an easy thing, and this is like
Speaker 2: one of the biggest societal issues in United States politics
Speaker 2: that we've just never had a reckoning with and we're
Speaker 2: seeing it play.
Speaker 5: Out in this way and I think it's just massively important.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, all credit to to everybody being out
Speaker 2: there and being solidarity with the Palestinian people. The kids
Speaker 2: are all right, all right, those iPad kids, they're all right.
Speaker 3: There are just all right. And by all right, we
Speaker 3: mean like C plus they're just they're they're all right.
Speaker 3: Millennials still rule. We're a plus amazing. All right.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it for today, back tomorrow with the
Speaker 1: whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind
Speaker 1: to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine,
Speaker 1: don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk
Speaker 1: to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 1: B