UPDATE
Feb 20th, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
The police pepper-sprayed the crowd earlier and a few supporters in the street were injured. There are still between 400-500 people out there and it doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere. We, the students of the occupation, remain firmly against violent action and we hope the crowd stands in non-violent solidarity with us. Negotiations are ongoing and we thank you all for your support!!
edit this! it says you’re firmly AGAINST nonviolent action!
You are in the fortunate position of seeing things from above. Has Washington Square South been blocked off, as I heard?
You remain firmly against non-violent action?
Did you seriously just post that?
remember, nonviolence is rooted in love - perhaps the biggest challenge of a true nonviolent protest is to genuinely love the “other side,” and ideally to shed the notion of “sides” altogether. one world, one city, one NYU community. your action can not be a “damn the man!” protest, it must be a positive effort to create a more open, honest, and compassionate university environment.
and while the police perhaps were wrong to pepper spray, don’t let that deter any of you from continued nonviolence. try to understand where they are coming from - growing unease regarding a growing crowd, fear that the longer the crowd remains, the rowdier they will become, and the more likely it becomes that violence will erupt. prove them wrong by remaining steadfastly strong through your commitment to peace.
peace. unity. love. hope. determination. change.
Most of the people down there are just watching for fun or are actively protesting against you. Just FYI.
you guys should get a big megaphone and be like “YOOO! WE’RE TAKE BACK NYU! AND YOU SHOULDN’T FIGHT.”
perhaps start a text message chain in the crowd, that says something simple like “grab hand of person next to you. chant [insert good peaceful chant here...N-Y-Unity or something].” use cell technology to coordinate the crowd in an obviously peaceful, loving, determined chant that perhaps will assuage the nerves of the police and make sure nonviolent action is used to aid your cause.
God almighty…
it is amazing you people got away with what you did, for the time being. you realize you are all fucked after the year is over.
Just figured I’d point it out
So you guys are till in there! when the feed died I thought you guys were gone. Best of luck to you! Resisting is winning!
You guys should be arrested and expelled, you keep talking about a democracy but this is not how democracy works.
‘Reality’ seems to have forgotten the term “civil disobedience”
WHAT IS THIS? YOU WOULD SAY THIS OVER THE MEGAPHONE?? :
“We want them to hear you at the meeting… we want them to be fucking scared! ”
Are any of you in any way students of nonviolence? Do you understand what nonviolence is? Nonviolence is not limited to abstention from physical violence. Wishing that the administration be “fucking scared” demonstrates hostility, and unwillingness to find a peaceful resolution. If you truly wanted a nonviolent protest, you would never use such hateful language.
I am disgusting with the brutality against the students.
We support you! Never give up, never surrender!
[...] am Update: New post at Take Back NYU website [...]
“We, the students of the occupation, remain firmly against non-violent action and we hope the crowd stands in non-violent solidarity with us.”
Firmly against violent action? Dangerous typos…
you need a better megaphone.
the hecklers and douchebags outfront outnumber the supporters unfortunately.
spread the word and get more involved.
this is (can be) bigger and better organized.
get a better megaphone. find a PA system. something.
Myself and my fellow activists/friends are in support of yall and are excited to see more students around the nation taking back control of their education and learning that resistance is an act of patriotism.
keep up the good work, don’t give up!
You ARE disgusting, with your quote from the Tim Allen film “Galaxy Quest.” Stay in exile, idiot.
And why did you delete my comment calling you fucks out for breaking your “statement of non-violence”?
Nonviolence is rooted in love. The biggest challenge of nonviolent action is loving he/she you might consider your enemy, recognizing that the idea of enemy is itself a false construction, that in actuality there is only one community of which we are all members. Having demands, being frustrated, exhibiting determination and solidarity and strength, these are fine and virtuous. But anger is toxic and hatred poisons even the most just of causes. You cannot truly label something nonviolent, even in the absence of violent physical action, when you admit you want the other side to be “fucking scared.” THAT is not the goal, and THAT is not a nonviolent means to an end. Nonviolent action seeks communication and peaceful resolution, not fear generation.
Violence against Palestine means… 1330 dead Gazans, and then 400 pepper-sprayed students at a peaceful sit-in at NYU.
Pepper spray!! Good for you!!!
Hang in there. Stick to your demands and keep the media focused on them. The story’s not fear or violence, the story is injustice. All the best.
Nonviolence is also about trying to understand the other side, much as you may disagree with them. Why would the police engage in any brutality toward the students? Because they are scared that the longer a large crowd gathers, the more restless it will become, and the more likely it is that it will become violent. If your crowd is fighting back against the police, they will only justify the fears and heighten the situation. Start a text message chain to people in the crowd that says something like “Grab hand of person next to you. Chant ‘N-Y-Unity’ [or similar peaceful chant]. Pass it on.” In that way, assuage the fears of the police while bolstering your cause and the solidarity of the crowd.
Assalam aleikum,
I am amazed at your bravery and what can only be called masterful strategy in terms of surprise and publicity. However this thing will turn out, it has already set a standard and an example to follow. I know you aren’t the first, but there is something different about this sit-in/occupation. Maybe, cuz it’s such an affluent college. You guys are probably under intense pressure, and I am sure dem pigs are playing or planning all sorts of tricks on you. Whatever. Please, know that many students are with you and support you. You took up a noble cause and such are the hardest to enliven, but by God, the benefit will greatly outweigh the cost.
Viva la Revolucion!
Orange Co, Cali
nonviolence is a load of crap. i mean clearly it makes tactical sense to refrain from violence in this case, attacking the police certainly won’t help your cause. but i dont think that sending waves of love and kindness to the president of NYU will help either.
Those who conflate physical violence with wanting the administration of NYU to be scared of pissing off an angry crowd are a bit crazy. the point of the protest is to show support and help pressure the administration into agreeing to the demands.
and the goal is not to love the other side, the goal is to win.
Dear lord, get over yourselves. Today you assaulted police officers, destroyed property, and all-around looked like morons on the national news, all in service of a completely unrelated laundry list of petty complaints.
And… isn’t it more than a little ironic for you to bitch about NYU’s lack of “openness,” then cut the only reporter out of your conferences, and kill video feeds whenever you discuss anything important? It’s like Animal Farm: you’ve become the pigs.
Keep it up comrades! Our collective in South LA was following the feeds tonight.
And Chelsea: is it nonviolent to witness injustice and do nothing? If you see a cop clubbing somebody, are you really nonviolent if you don’t try to intervene, and someone gets hurt because of your adherence to a “holier than thou” ideology? If someone’s threatening me or a friend, I’m not gonna try to “understand the other side” or grab the hand of the person next to me, I’m gonna fuck em up, or go down trying. Remember, nonviolence isn’t just about what you do, it’s about what you could do. If you choose to abstain from violence and violence against others result, your action inadvertently was violent. And the ability to “choose” nonviolence comes from an extremely privileged position.
Mucha solidaridad compas, much love from Orange County and UC-Irvine. We’ll do whatever we can from here to support.
Good plan, Chelsea!
chelsea you gotta be kidding me… stop telling people what they should do, and start thinking about your own priviledged and indeed violent pacifist fundamentalism. Please take a serious look at your own presuppositions and the problematic assertions you make, that are hostile in their own right… With all due respect, I could go on and on dealing with the details of your several statements, but they do not merit my time or energy, if you are not willing first to check yourself and your privilege, which is hostile to my existence as someone who was born with a police boot to my neck and is forced to live under the constant threat of the baton
5-6 Hundred? Don’t you all know at least three hundred were there to see ya’ll get arrested. No matter what your stance, your actions caused the violence of tonight. Just pack it up an leave. All the way to a state university
Sounds like the police are the ones that need a lesson in non-violence… as usual.
Stay strong! Stay in the streets! <3
man, if everybody looked like those little pictures next to the posts, we’d all be good to go
When’re we getting the live feed back?
found this online looking for an update. hes right, ya;ll really need to go home and find something better to do.
http://assieff.blogspot.com/2009/02/tbnyu-and-slow-death-of-legitimate.html
Next time you morons decide to protest nonviolently you might want to avoid assaulting public safety…some poor guy got sent to the fucking hospital because you wanted to join your friends in kimmel. I hope they clear all of you out soon. I don’t care whether you get expelled, I just want to eat at the third floor again and its obvious you’re not going to get anything done.
you guys are the most idiot group of people there are…. do you REALLY think this protest will end up in lowering tuition???? or providing scholarship to random palestianians from gaza… WHY THE F would nyu EVER do that… seriously, if you don’t have the money, you should have never came to nyu… but if you decided to come, it is YOUR duty as students to provide for school… of course you can ask for more financial aid, but do you really think that can be done through violent protests and taking over of KIMMEL of all places… stupid idiots… i bet all you tbnyu kids are from tisch and gallatin…. the idiots of nyu
those pigs are always around to protect the interest of the capitalist in this case administration . In Cuba or Venezuela or any communist or socialist country the students would be protected right now not the administration.
get to class and stop wasting your parents money and the taxpayers money.
I’m sorry if my thoughts on nonviolence are construed as a vote for inaction or passivity, because it is anything but.
to “nonviolence supports the state”:
I’m unclear about the meaning of “violent pacifist fundamentalism.” I meant to point out the importance of trying to understand where the other side is coming from. If you don’t try to understand why the adminstration are being douchebags, or why the police would be engaging in violence against the protestors, you can’t hope to devise the most effective strategy for countering it. You risk instead feeding into exactly what “the man” expects of you–that you’re disorganized, potentially violent, angry hippies that aren’t to be taken seriously.
Comments like ACG’s I think really highlight what I was trying to point out–the fine line between a nonviolent action that’s perceived as such, and one that instead becomes perceived as violent (unfortunately, perception is arguably reality):
“Today you assaulted police officers, destroyed property, and all-around looked like morons on the national news, all in service of a completely unrelated laundry list of petty complaints.”
I was there from shortly after 12am till about 2am this morning. The majority of people there were not against the TBNYU appropriation of the Kimmel building. Many residents of NYC and students from several schools, private and ‘public’, were present and in solidarity with TBNYU. Those of you claiming otherwise, whether in open or covert hostility, are not accurate and I hope not influential with your propaganda. Were it not so dangerously cold and windy people would have stood longer and who knows what else.
There were also police agents under cover and provoking violence & confusion. Many brought it to my attention.
Some [edited] comments from my post to another thread:
Adhering to the capitalist & bourgeois idea that property is sacred will only leave/lead you to the death trap that is bourgeois capitalism.
Destroying property that is oppresive and repressive to democratic liberation seems like a rational and logical course of action to be acceptable to all seeking a democratic and liberated existence.
If an action occurs where not a single part of living tissue results in being, or is intended to be, harmed how is such an action violent?
Violence is what non-democratic institutions like NYU, CUNY, the New School, NYPD, US DOD, Israeli IDF and their supporters perpetuate on a daily basis. Violence is fundamental to their dominance and their existence. Abolish them as need be!
Hope to assist as capable and needed.
Peace, Love, Solidarity & Democracy for all who want it and need it
“is it nonviolent to witness injustice and do nothing? If you see a cop clubbing somebody, are you really nonviolent if you don’t try to intervene, and someone gets hurt because of your adherence to a “holier than thou” ideology? If someone’s threatening me or a friend, I’m not gonna try to “understand the other side” or grab the hand of the person next to me, I’m gonna fuck em up, or go down trying.”
VIOLENCE: (n) - exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse (note that this definition, from Merriam-Webster, does not restrict the exertion to only exertion against humans).
NON-VIOLENCE: (n) - abstention from violence as a matter of principle.
Just because you don’t like the definition of a word doesn’t mean you can pretend it means something else. If you respond to injustice with “exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse”, then you cannot claim that you responded with “nonviolence”. If you decide to “fuck em up, or go down trying”, you cannot say that you were nonviolent. And if that is what you think is the best response in the situation you described, then you apparently think that violence is sometimes the best response. Which is fine. But own that, admit that you think violence is sometimes the best option, rather than trying to say that “hitting people back is sometimes the truest form of nonviolence” or some other meaningless nonsense.
You started something that second to the housing crisis, should be front page. This tranparency needs to become reality - there is too much covered spending on campuses that need to be reviewed by the public. And it starts in Albany.
Retaliation is met in many ways when discussions regrading missing funds, or false time sheets that are paid in full are met with the same administrative guidlines - some cases retaliation and termination and in others dismissal - same policies, same people allowing this. Get to S.I. a known cesspool of corruption and I may have to take time off to join the picket lines and learn to live on peanut butter and jelly - but please stick with financial disclosures as originally reported, not mid east politics.
Chelsea (and perhaps also Chris):
Here’s what I mean by “violent pacifist fundamentalism” cut and pasted below from an earlier post on the initial TBNYU Statement (words in brackets added for the sake of current discussion):
“While I agree with most of your statement [on nonviolence], I strongly urge you to rethink your take on private property and violence… I think it is quite skewed to construe property damage [or mere hostility or hostile words to police for that matter] as violence and destructiveness. To frame anything not explicitly articulated under the tenets of “non-violence” as necessarily a form of “violence” is itself a deployment of a violent dimorphous logic, an “either you are with us or against us” form of thinking, such as that of George Bush’s crusade, that amounts to its own form of pacifist fundamentalist pathology… [There is quite a distance between violence and nonviolence, such as Self-Defense as ONE example; Robert Williams and MLK agreed on this distinction despite Wiliams being painted as 'violent'] To be clear, the proposition of any binary position as a root principle is one of the most violent acts constitutive of a Eurocentric, mysoginist, Christian, colonial episteme of which you, for all your well intentioned statements, have yet to fully untangle yourself from. I stand with you when you say you are against “oppression of any form” but I also stand against all forms of fundamentalisms and please realize that your position on nonviolence [as principle] IS fundamentalist and therefore “oppressive.””
I don’t think at all that Chelsea was proposing “inaction” but rather that the actions proposed were problematic in their presuppositions. We have a long history from which to draw on in terms of understanding where the police and admin are coming from. The issue requires a sustained, systemic and structural critique, rather than individualizing it and making it about what individual police were ‘thinking’, as they aren’t necessarily thinking, but rather playing out their roles within a given structural situation that we do have an understanding of. And trust me, they don’t take any “nonviolent” organized folks any more seriously than “disorganized, potentially violent, angry hippies”. Point is their roles aren’t to take anyone seriously, but rather to protect the interests of those in power (ie. admin) through the use of force (police). The question then becomes, strategically speaking, not whether to be more ‘forceful’, but rather knowing when and when not to be more forceful.