Change Starts Here
November 19, 2011
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.
Life of Wry 
November 20, 2011 at 9:50 am
Wow. Thanks for the update. Glad your pages are helping the communications process. I heard a social media expert say that in the first weeks of the Occupy movement, there were 200 accounts in the mainstream press and 9 million Twitter/Facebook posts.
November 20, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Kari,
There is something so powerful for me about this arriving home. It is a call that can not be ignored.
I believe that the national consciousness, as you mention, is taking more notice each day. I believe that this is very messy business. The work is to stay engaged, to share what we witness (exactly as you have done), to listen closely to others and remain determined to discover an evolving new truth.
I think that we are at a point in US and human history that is unprecedented. That is not to claim to know what it is, but rather to say, “Hang on tight, it’s going to be a wild, unpredictable, important and exhilarating ride.” I’m glad to know we’ll be traveling together.
Mark
November 20, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Wow.. that may be the most chilling of all the videos, the walk of shame.