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Taking Back New York University

February 21st, 2009 by cooper

A stu­dent (dis)organization, from my old haunt, called “Take Back NYU”, having skip­ped “Pro­test 101″, took back NYU by making a gazi­llions demands without any kind of uh… orga­ni­za­tion. Kind of took the puff out of their dragon.

If you are going to show soli­da­rity with Gaza you don’t neces­sa­rily throw it in with with a basin full of “occu­pa­tion demands”, which are sepe­rate from “The Demands”.

You don’t demand amnesty for all par­ties invol­ved, you say you will willingly face incar­ce­ra­tion for your beliefs. You do not demand full com­pen­sa­tion for all emplo­yees whose jobs were dis­rup­ted during the course of your occu­pa­tion, you tell them you are going to pay them for the dis­rup­tion. When you demand public release of NYU’s annual bud­get and endow­ment, you inc­rease your dose of Adde­rall. You don’t demand annual scho­larships be pro­vi­ded for thir­teen Pales­ti­nian stu­dents when there are stu­dents at your school, evi­dently not you, who will leave that school with debt out the yang even after having wor­ked a cou­ple of jobs from which they came home exhaus­ted every eve­ning only to have to study and take care of family mem­bers. I went to school with many of those stu­dents, stood with them in the buil­ding you occu­pied. They would eat you alive.You don’t demand that the uni­ver­sity donate all excess sup­plies and mate­rials in an effort to rebuild the Uni­ver­sity of Gaza. As noted this is a sepe­rate pro­test and should be defi­ned and orga­ni­zed dif­fe­rently. I love New Yor­kers, but it’s scary enough having stu­dents from all over the city roa­ming that abyss, and when you demand that the gene­ral public have access to Bobst Library it is obvious you are not that tightly woven, or have never actually been there. Something which wouldn’t sur­prise me con­si­de­ring the way this pla­yed out after what.…two years of planning.

Good try, but you have emba­rras­sed a lot of peo­ple. I will now have to tell peo­ple I gra­dua­ted from Hofs­tra, yea I know that is pretty sad. You’ve put me in a really nasty position.

At least take “Prio­ri­tize 101″ at your next school. May I sug­gest The Uni­ted Sta­tes Merchant Marine Aca­demy.

This made made me a little nos­tal­gic though, and for some rea­son my first thought was “those silly kids”.

You may assume I am a “Ster­nie”. I assure you I am not.

NYU Pro­test Update: The Final Four
Take Back NYU!: Change We Can Believe In?
How a Fringe Group at NYU Went From Being Dis­li­ked to Loathed — The Story of the TBNYU! Kim­mel Occupation

com­ments off — my head is killing me edition.

A quick adden­dum: The inau­gu­ral poem “I should be famous” post is up at Should Be Famous. The inau­gu­ral poet/blogger is Kath­leen Bur­ton from After Can­cer Now What. I’ll be pos­ting another one soon. The rea­son for the change over is in Show Your Stuff

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