On Wednesday night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence. On the campus of Penn State University in State College Pennsylvania, several hundred students rioted in anger after the firing of legendary 84-year-old head football coach Joe Paterno. At the University of California at Berkeley, 1,000 students, part of the Occupy USA movement, attempted to maintain their protest encampment in the face of police orders to clear them out.
At Penn State, students overturned a media truck, hit an ESPN reporter in the head with a rock and made every effort at arson, attempting to set aflame the very heart of their campus. They raised their fists in defense of a man fired for allegedly covering up the actions of a revered assistant who doubled as a serial child rapist. The almost entirely male student mob was given the space by police to seethe and destroy without restraint.
At Berkeley, the police had a much different response. Defenseless students were struck repeatedly with batons, as efforts were made to disperse their occupation by Sproul Hall, the site of the famed Mario Savio–led free speech battles of the 1960s.
Two coasts and two riots: a frat riot and a cop riot. Each riot, an indelible mark of shame on their respective institutions.
The difference is that at Berkeley, the Occupiers—a diverse assemblage of students, linking arms—pushed back and displayed true courage in the face of state violence. They would not be moved. These students are a credit to their school and represent the absolute best of a young generation who are refusing to accept the world as it is.
At Penn State, we saw the worst of this generation: the flotsam and the fools; the dregs and the Droogs; young men of entitlement who rage for the machine.
No matter how many police officers raised their sticks, the students of Berkeley stood their ground, empowered by a deeper set of commitments to economic and social justice.
No matter how many children come forward to testify how Joe Paterno’s dear friend Jerry Sandusky brutally sodomized them on their very campus, the students at Penn State stood their ground. They stood committed to a man whose statue adorns their campus, whose salary exceeds $1.5 million and whose name for years was whispered to them like he was a benevolent Russian czar and they were the burgeoning Black Hundreds.
Theirs was a tragic statement that proud Penn State has become little more than a company town that’s been in the lucrative business of nursing Joe Paterno’s legend for far too long.
I spoke this morning to a student who was at Sproul Hall and another resident who was a bystander at State College. The word that peppered both of their accounts was “fear:” fear that those with the space and means to be violent—the police at Berkeley and the rioters at Penn State—would take it to, as Anne, a Berkeley student said to me, “a frightening point of no return.”
I would argue that this “point of no return” has now actually been reached, spurred by Wednesday night’s study in contrasts.
November 9 was a generational wake-up call to every student on every campus in this country. Which side are you on? Do you defend the ugliest manifestations of unchecked power or do you fight for a better world with an altogether different set of values? Do you stand with the Thugs of Penn State or do you stand with Occupiers of Berkeley? It’s fear vs. hope, and the stakes are a hell of a lot higher than a BCS bowl.
Source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/164535/pe
At Penn State, students overturned a media truck, hit an ESPN reporter in the head with a rock and made every effort at arson, attempting to set aflame the very heart of their campus. They raised their fists in defense of a man fired for allegedly covering up the actions of a revered assistant who doubled as a serial child rapist. The almost entirely male student mob was given the space by police to seethe and destroy without restraint.
At Berkeley, the police had a much different response. Defenseless students were struck repeatedly with batons, as efforts were made to disperse their occupation by Sproul Hall, the site of the famed Mario Savio–led free speech battles of the 1960s.
Two coasts and two riots: a frat riot and a cop riot. Each riot, an indelible mark of shame on their respective institutions.
The difference is that at Berkeley, the Occupiers—a diverse assemblage of students, linking arms—pushed back and displayed true courage in the face of state violence. They would not be moved. These students are a credit to their school and represent the absolute best of a young generation who are refusing to accept the world as it is.
At Penn State, we saw the worst of this generation: the flotsam and the fools; the dregs and the Droogs; young men of entitlement who rage for the machine.
No matter how many police officers raised their sticks, the students of Berkeley stood their ground, empowered by a deeper set of commitments to economic and social justice.
No matter how many children come forward to testify how Joe Paterno’s dear friend Jerry Sandusky brutally sodomized them on their very campus, the students at Penn State stood their ground. They stood committed to a man whose statue adorns their campus, whose salary exceeds $1.5 million and whose name for years was whispered to them like he was a benevolent Russian czar and they were the burgeoning Black Hundreds.
Theirs was a tragic statement that proud Penn State has become little more than a company town that’s been in the lucrative business of nursing Joe Paterno’s legend for far too long.
I spoke this morning to a student who was at Sproul Hall and another resident who was a bystander at State College. The word that peppered both of their accounts was “fear:” fear that those with the space and means to be violent—the police at Berkeley and the rioters at Penn State—would take it to, as Anne, a Berkeley student said to me, “a frightening point of no return.”
I would argue that this “point of no return” has now actually been reached, spurred by Wednesday night’s study in contrasts.
November 9 was a generational wake-up call to every student on every campus in this country. Which side are you on? Do you defend the ugliest manifestations of unchecked power or do you fight for a better world with an altogether different set of values? Do you stand with the Thugs of Penn State or do you stand with Occupiers of Berkeley? It’s fear vs. hope, and the stakes are a hell of a lot higher than a BCS bowl.
Source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/164535/pe
Because you think if only a small minority feel this way than the rest of them would at least be counter protesting, or boycotting the game, or doing something a little more proactive for the sake of those young boys who were victimized. Are they really going to condemn us for the -wonderful- impression the rioters are making when that's the biggest response we've been seeing?
And maybe blogging.
I also don't think one should be concerned about being "blanketed" because if they show that they are 1) not a rioter and 2) not involved in part of the cover up then we probably aren't going to condemn them just for attending.
Maybe some of the coverage of the riots are sensationalist but my impression is more based off the rioters and the public opinion than just rather "do they attend that university."
Candelight vigil for the victims
http://www.newsday.com/sports/college/c
'Blue out' to honour the victims at their most recent game
http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2
Alumn raising money for victims of sexual assault.
I'm an Aussie who does not get grid iron, does not understand how people can be so passionate about college teams. All the information above I gleaned from the threads here at ONTD_P. Five minutes to Google from memories.
There is plenty being done, but the dickheads who rioted and are being all emotional about the coach are more newsworthy, hence are getting more coverage.
I guess I have a hard time expressing it but I just feel like it's reasonable to condemn this university and the rioters, but other students are acting offended because of it.
And the students I've seen that are offended are the ones who are being told 'All UPenn students are scumbags/rape apologists/ect' I'd be offended at hearing that.
Looking back my first comment is a little unfair but I am somewhat frustrated at the riots and so many people trying to defend the college. I don't blame all the students of course but I don't feel bad that people are calling out the rioters.
I also think it's bullshit that people are acting like Paterno is innocent. Even if he only got a report he went for years knowing that someone under his wing was likely raping children and didn't do a thing to save the boys.
Not that I don't think the people protesting Joepa's dismissal aren't scum and deserve some mace to the face.
It's not so much about disagreement as it is about setting things on fire.
College students do often riot over sports. The rioting is not always caused by a football coach who looked the other way while a colleague raped children.
Talking about the rioting IS talking about the coverup, because it's indicative of the atmosphere at Penn State that made such a cover-up possible.
we should be talking about how the penn state football program basically funds everything at the school. we should be talking about how the penn state officials felt the program was more important than children. the riot was important to talk about on wednesday when it happened. now its monday and i think we should be writing articles focusing on the coverup and not the idiot students.
Yeah, but this wasn't a game outcome. It was a riot over Paterno being fired for not doing a damn thing when he knew children were being raped. It's not that hard to look at the rioters and coming to the conclusion that they believe that football is more important than the coverup.
It IS different from other college sports riots. They're not rioting because they lost a game, or because they're trying to change the mascot or something.
It's happening at Penn State, right now, because they fired a football coach who covered up child rape. Let's not obscure details or call them irrelevant simply because college riots can happen for other reasons at other places. That's not the point.
we should be talking about how the penn state officials felt the program was more important than children.
And the entire POINT of the riot was to protest the firing of a man who thought it was more important. The atmosphere at Penn State was that Paterno and football were more important than the welfare of children. The riot REFLECTS that; it doesn't deflect attention away from it, it amplifies it.
the riot was important to talk about on wednesday when it happened. now its monday and i think we should be writing articles focusing on the coverup and not the idiot students.
Internet time has really warped people's perceptions of real time, hasn't it? Wednesday was less than a week ago. The students started a violent riot in which they overturned a news truck and did other stupid things. Why do we have to stop talking about it less than a week later?
The idiot students are part of a culture that promoted the cover-up. Spanier, Schultz, Curley and Paterno thought they could cover this up precisely because it is Penn State country and because they knew that others rated the football team higher on the food chain than the children. This is shocking, and riotous, to the students precisely because this is not what they EXPECTED to happen - they expected it to go away, and maybe Paterno to retire in a ball of glory and Spanier to remain untouched. Don't you see that the issues are related? Things do not happen in a vacuum. The riots at Penn State would not have happened if the cover-up had not happened - but the cover-up would not have happened without the kind of protective atmosphere that also produced the riots.
Besides, like I said, people are capable of thinking about more than one issue at the same time - and about several different facets of the same issue.
It's depressing. Good on the Berkeley kids.
When the riot was happened, PSU's local police was ill-equipped to handle a rioting crowd of 2K and the State Riot Police had to come in and end it (and even them weren't all that successful either) because they were skirting a nearby town. There were containing, spraying pepper spray or mace, and arrests though.
Berkeley had a rep of being a protest hotbed and a police that is trained for potential rioting wouldn't be surprising. Plus it's easier to fuck with a crowd that is enforcing non-violent protest than a crowd that riots hard and fast. At least the media at least points out the containing, arrests and spraying mace/pepper spray in a non-violent protest and rightfully so. That stuff in a riot is basically a given, but in a non-violent protest, it shows you the corruption of police.
a frat riot and a cop riot
I like this.