Life of Wry

We are in the early stages of a drama that is rocking the campus and community of Davis.

Yesterday afternoon, UCD police in riot gear pepper-sprayed this row of sitting students on the quad (while I raked leaves in the front yard just 2 1/2 blocks away, obliviously). Students. Students who, okay, locked arms. But students whose message was hey, we’re having a hard time gettin’ an education here. And whose small cluster of North Face and Kelty tents was somehow posing a serious health and security threat.

This photo is making the rounds globally, quickly becoming a symbolic statement about all that is wrong in our country. [Hint: it’s not the students.]

A quick glance at what is trending in Twitter just now shows national and even global disgust at this police action against a non-violent, non-threatening group of students.  A Google search turns up hundreds of articles, photos & videos (impressively, just about every student present was taking pics and videos on cell phones).  I have friends in Holland, Nepal, Hong Kong and Australia who are following this and commenting on my facebook page.

Heads will roll, as they say, and I guess we’ll find out over the days and weeks to come how this impacts UCD, its new chancellor, its chief of police.  Nothing was more profound and powerful than the silent treatment the students gave Chancellor Katehi as she walked from tonight’s press conference to her car.  Hundreds of students lined her path as she walked, escorted, in surreal silence; a walk of shame.  Wow.

But I really hope the incidents of the last couple days add to the national consciousness about the imbalance of power and ultimately serve to mobilize and rally people in ways that grow this movement.

We have to start somewhere.