At USC, arrests. At UCLA, hands off. Why pro-Palestinian protests have not blown up on UC campuses

[jojoju1998]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-26/at-usc-arrests-at-ucla-hands-off-why-pro-palestinian-protests-have-not-blown-up-on-uc-campuses

https://web.archive.org/web/20240428001134/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-26/at-usc-arrests-at-ucla-hands-off-why-pro-palestinian-protests-have-not-blown-up-on-uc-campuses

"The more permissive UC response has been shaped by decades of experience with high-profile protests and in particular the 2011 uproar at UC Davis, where campus police pepper-sprayed students who were peacefully protesting economic and social inequality during the Occupy movement. Video of the incident went viral, and the widely condemned police actions resulted in the firing of at least one officer, a $1-million legal settlement with the student demonstrators and a UC systemwide review and report on how best to handle campus protests.

The report, noting the need to balance 1st Amendment rights with campus safety and security, made 49 recommendations, placing communication and dialogue as a “cornerstone” of responses, with police force used as the very last resort. In a key underlying principle, the report called for “a substantial shift away from a mindset that has been focused primarily on the maintenance of order and adherence to rules and regulations to a more open and communicative attitude.”

[ultraviolet]

I went to see the encampment at UCLA the other day and it was very peaceful and quiet. Looked like a bunch of people having a picnic except with tents with signs on them. You did have to wear an N-95 to enter the encampment though.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

To a large extent, I think it's because these other universities don't have Nerdeen Kiswani there to rile people up and incite violence. That's why Columbia is the worst of these.

[Horus]

I went to see the encampment at UCLA the other day and it was very peaceful and quiet. Looked like a bunch of people having a picnic except with tents with signs on them. You did have to wear an N-95 to enter the encampment though.

This lowers my opinion of them significantly. It's spring and the outdoors are beautiful here right now, I'm sure Cali is great too. I can understand wanting to protect identity but if they're specifically forcing N-95s that's not the reasoning. Take the damn masks off people!

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I went to see the encampment at UCLA the other day and it was very peaceful and quiet. Looked like a bunch of people having a picnic except with tents with signs on them. You did have to wear an N-95 to enter the encampment though.

This lowers my opinion of them significantly. It's spring and the outdoors are beautiful here right now, I'm sure Cali is great too. I can understand wanting to protect identity but if they're specifically forcing N-95s that's not the reasoning. Take the damn masks off people!

It's a California thing. The idea is that there should be every precaution taken toward the immunocompromised. Masking has essentially become cultural if anything at this point.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I went to see the encampment at UCLA the other day and it was very peaceful and quiet. Looked like a bunch of people having a picnic except with tents with signs on them. You did have to wear an N-95 to enter the encampment though.

This lowers my opinion of them significantly. It's spring and the outdoors are beautiful here right now, I'm sure Cali is great too. I can understand wanting to protect identity but if they're specifically forcing N-95s that's not the reasoning. Take the damn masks off people!

It's a California thing. The idea is that there should be every precaution taken toward the immunocompromised. Masking has essentially become cultural if anything at this point.

Certainly more masky than Real America, but it was the second farthest thing from ubiquitous when I was in the Bay Area and Sacramento January-March. Perhaps the syndrome is exaggerated on college campuses.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I went to see the encampment at UCLA the other day and it was very peaceful and quiet. Looked like a bunch of people having a picnic except with tents with signs on them. You did have to wear an N-95 to enter the encampment though.

This lowers my opinion of them significantly. It's spring and the outdoors are beautiful here right now, I'm sure Cali is great too. I can understand wanting to protect identity but if they're specifically forcing N-95s that's not the reasoning. Take the damn masks off people!

It's a California thing. The idea is that there should be every precaution taken toward the immunocompromised. Masking has essentially become cultural if anything at this point.

Certainly more masky than Real America, but it was the second farthest thing from ubiquitous when I was in the Bay Area and Sacramento January-March. Perhaps the syndrome is exaggerated on college campuses.

Live in the Bay Area, can confirm. I see very few people with masks these days.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

I went to see the encampment at UCLA the other day and it was very peaceful and quiet. Looked like a bunch of people having a picnic except with tents with signs on them. You did have to wear an N-95 to enter the encampment though.

This lowers my opinion of them significantly. It's spring and the outdoors are beautiful here right now, I'm sure Cali is great too. I can understand wanting to protect identity but if they're specifically forcing N-95s that's not the reasoning. Take the damn masks off people!

only reason I'd consider wearing one right now is because my allergies are going absolutely nuts right now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Glad to see my old stomping grounds as a bastion of sanity. I'm rarely impressed by the state of LA politics but I guess that's a rare W here.

[pikachu]

Glad to see my old stomping grounds as a bastion of sanity. I'm rarely impressed by the state of LA politics but I guess that's a rare W here.

Protestors and coutnerprotestors have just been fighting each other instead.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Glad to see my old stomping grounds as a bastion of sanity. I'm rarely impressed by the state of LA politics but I guess that's a rare W here.

Protestors and coutnerprotestors have just been fighting each other instead.

Unfortunate but still preferable to a police crackdown.

The appropriate use of police in these circumstances is indeed to interpose themselves between protesters and counterprotesters and ensure there's no opportunity for physical escalation, so I'm fine with them doing that.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

I went to see the encampment at UCLA the other day and it was very peaceful and quiet. Looked like a bunch of people having a picnic except with tents with signs on them. You did have to wear an N-95 to enter the encampment though.

This lowers my opinion of them significantly. It's spring and the outdoors are beautiful here right now, I'm sure Cali is great too. I can understand wanting to protect identity but if they're specifically forcing N-95s that's not the reasoning. Take the damn masks off people!

only reason I'd consider wearing one right now is because my allergies are going absolutely nuts right now.

Yeah, I generally only wear a mask when flying or at the doctor’s office and that’s not just for covid, but whatever people there might have. Also will be wearing one for allergy purposes when mowing the lawn today.

At least in Sacramento, people aren’t generally masking. There’s a bit more in the Bay Area, but part of me suspects that’s because masking is a bit more endemic in Asian cultures.

The idea of the protestors mandating N95s just seems kind of comical at this point.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

https://twitter.com/stephsvox/status/1785191326084219256?t=FCNyPkIt_lOjloi_oz7lS...

How are they able to determine whether someone is Jewish?

[dead0man]

wait wait wait, you have to wear an N95 mask, but can't wear a yamaka?  If you support these protests, you are a bad person.  Period.

[Horus]

I just can't get over the N-95s. That is the perfect way to hurt your cause, nobody likes those things and COVID is over.

[pikachu]

Very Atlas to be caught up on the masks and not the fact that protestors are beating each other up.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Very Atlas to be caught up on the masks and not the fact that protestors are beating each other up.

Vigorous disagreement over an extremely contentious issue is less noteworthy than demanding blind adherence to COVID protocols in 2024 as a cultural/ideological signifier.

Think about it, they are demanding that people wear N-95s to enter an encampment that is:
- Outdoors (COVID very rarely spreads outdoors)
- In full sun
- In 2024 (even the WHO no longer recommends masking in most situations)
- In a time when current COVID strains are both more contagious and less deadly than the original ones
- After most people have been vaccinated, had COVID multiple times, or both, so an infection is less unlikely to be severe, especially for young people.
- Effective treatments for COVID now exist, unlike in 2020

This is just as scientifically ignorant as anti-maskers in 2020-21. Of course, this is more understandable, since these are students who've had their entire college experience disrupted and shaped by COVID, so the sense of safety the masks provide is going to be very difficult for them to relinquish.

[pikachu]

Very Atlas to be caught up on the masks and not the fact that protestors are beating each other up.

Vigorous disagreement over an extremely contentious issue is less noteworthy than demanding blind adherence to COVID protocols in 2024 as a cultural/ideological signifier.

Think about it, they are demanding that people wear N-95s to enter an encampment that is:
- Outdoors (COVID very rarely spreads outdoors)
- In full sun
- In 2024 (even the WHO no longer recommends masking in most situations)
- In a time when current COVID strains are both more contagious and less deadly than the original ones
- After most people have been vaccinated, had COVID multiple times, or both, so an infection is less unlikely to be severe, especially for young people.
- Effective treatments for COVID now exist, unlike in 2020

This is just as scientifically ignorant as anti-maskers in 2020-21. Of course, this is more understandable, since these are students who've had their entire college experience disrupted and shaped by COVID, so the sense of safety the masks provide is going to be very difficult for them to relinquish.

I think the masking is dumb, but the escalation in violence at UCLA and the accompanying lack of response by administration is more notable. Afaik, actual fighting and assault between different sides has not occurred on other campuses - might be wrong on this since UCLA’s my alma mater and I’ve been following this more closely, but protestors pepper spraying, launching fireworks at each other, and engaging in a minor riot seems like another level of insanity.

[DaleCooper]

Very Atlas to be caught up on the masks and not the fact that protestors are beating each other up.

I get what you're saying, but I think part of it is that the masking is so strange and out of touch that it helps explain the other bad behavior. Kind of like how the UFO alien suicide cult made everybody wear matching Nike shoes. Obviously the shoes are nothing compared to the mass suicide but it was an interest anecdote that showed how much control they had over their people.

[Steve from Lambeth]

Well, that aged well

[ultraviolet]

People were physically fighting and even shot fireworks at the encampment for three hours last night before the police showed up. How does that even happen?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

I just can't get over the N-95s. That is the perfect way to hurt your cause, nobody likes those things and COVID is over.

It's not about COVID, it's so the protesters can hide their faces.

[Horus]

I just can't get over the N-95s. That is the perfect way to hurt your cause, nobody likes those things and COVID is over.

It's not about COVID, it's so the protesters can hide their faces.

If that were the case they wouldn't specifically require N-95s, but would accept any form of face covering. That they are forcing this kind of mask specifically suggests that it's some kind of neurotic COVID thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I just can't get over the N-95s. That is the perfect way to hurt your cause, nobody likes those things and COVID is over.

It's not about COVID, it's so the protesters can hide their faces.

If that were the case they wouldn't specifically require N-95s, but would accept any form of face covering. That they are forcing this kind of mask specifically suggests that it's some kind of neurotic COVID thing.

That actually reminds me that if the January 6 attackers weren't so irrationally anti-mask (because masking actually did make sense in January of 2021), at least a good chunk of them would've likely gotten away with it.

[Steve from Lambeth]

"Police officers are dismantling barricades at the pro-Palestinian protest at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA)"