Thread: Mini-Riot at Columbia as Minutemen Forced Off Stage

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/76890.shtml

Mini-Riot at Columbia as Minutemen Forced Off Stage

10/5 | Audience rushes the stage, racist speakers forced off in fistfight.

By Elliot D. Crooks and Comrade Gumby, breaking news taken from 'The Bwog'

As a large, vocal protest raged outside Roone Arledge Auditorium at Columbia University, Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist was heckled and confronted onstage by students, prompting a fistfight between students and the Minutemen. According to an on-scene report, "there [were] at least two minutes of chaos between students, other students and the Minutemen." It seems Gilchrist was prevented from speaking. [Read Original Post and Comments]

After the confrontation ended, a mosh pit of triumphal students and community members danced and chanted outside the auditorium, "Asian, Black, Brown and White, we smashed the Minutemen tonight!"

Keywords: Analysis, Local, Human Rights, Activism,


struggle on stage

Blow by blow and photos via 'The Bwog.'

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The Scene: After a 45 minute long diatribe by his opener, during which a packed crowd inside Roone Arledge got increasingly irate, main event Jim Gilchrist was rushed by a large group of students, in what descended into a free-for-all on the stage. Scroll below for the blow-by-blow and photos.

In the biggest old-fashioned activist shindig Broadway has seen since Chris Kulawik's last guest arrived in November 2005, hundreds of students and community members yelled and picketed outside Lerner to protest the arrival of Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen. They had catchy slogans.

"Workers of the world unite! Same struggle, same fight!"
"Minutemen, Nazis, KKK! Racists, fascists, go away!"

Bwog is still inside Roone Arledge listening to the opener, who's already 30 minutes into a free-associative rant, which he began by thanking Jesus and Kulawik.

"ARE YOU READY to surrender your liberties?"

"This nation has been blessed with such men as Jim Gilchrist and myself that has given people the freedom to protest."

Protesters shouted:
You don't know shit about god!
Black white supremacist!
Go home!

The Speaker countered: I am home! God bless America!
BOOOOOOOOOOO!

It's getting more surreal by the minute. Stay tuned for updates.

Update 8:41 pm: Someone yelled, "In Spanish, please!" The crowd burst into a thunderous appllause, which spiraled into a full-out protest, complete with Mexican wrestling masks. The students are now one by one standing up, with their backs to the man, who has asked, "Are you standing with your backs to me? Why'd you come, no wonder you don't know anything." Repubs cheered, others sneered.

Update 8:45 pm: Some white-shirted students were just escorted out of the auditorium by security.

Update 8:47 pm: Man at the podium is still ranting, despite the beads of sweat trickling down his forehead and his voice-cracks... "Religion and morality are necessary for government." Students chanting: "Wrap it up! Wrap it up!" Some guy just came out to try to get him to stop, and he said, "Let me finish..." he's sweating, and looks angry. "All of you who are doing your chanting in here are the very ones that need this the most. But guess what, I'm not deterred."

Update 8:51 pm: "I'm going to wrap this up because time is an issue," the man has stopped talking with a boisterous "God Bless America, and America Bless God!" Kulawik came out, "I was under the false assumption that this was an Ivy League School." Minuteman has finally entered and shouted, "Now who're you calling racist?" putting his arm around the black speaker. I love the First Amendment. As soon as you graduate, you'll all be investment bankers. I've been where you at. I know you hate yourselves."

Update 9:00 pm: BWOG IS SHOCKED. STUDENTS WITH A BIG YELLOW SIGN JUST CAME ONTO THE STAGE. More students from the audience rushed the stage. The Minuteman and the students engaged in a tug of war with the banner. More people rushed the stage, prompting a fist-fight. One student was kicked in the head. A guy in a pony tail and the Minuteman started shouting the pledge of allegiance together as the rumble spun out of hand, "One nation! Under God! Indivisible!"

There was at least two minutes of chaos between students, other students and the Minutemen.

Update: 9:01 pm: Security came out, now the curtain is down. Students are still chanting, now everyone's filing out.

Update: 9:15 pm: Students outside shouting, "They say, 'get bent,' we say, 'let's fight!'"

Update: 9:22 pm: A Bwog correspondent calls in a tip. A student defending the Minuteman right outside the gates on 115th was encircled by a group of protesters after a heated personal fight with just one of the protesters. The protesters then shouted, "Racist, go home!" Security showed up, and they started breaking up. Student last seen laughing on phone with friends.

http://www.nysun.com/article/40983

At Columbia, Students Attack Minuteman Founder

By ELIANA JOHNSON - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 5, 2006


Students stormed the stage at Columbia University's Roone auditorium yesterday, knocking over chairs and tables and attacking Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen, a group that patrols the border between America and Mexico.

Mr. Gilchrist and Marvin Stewart, another member of his group, were in the process of giving a speech at the invitation of the Columbia College Republicans. They were escorted off the stage unharmed and exited the auditorium by a back door.

Having wreaked havoc onstage, the students unrolled a banner that read, in both Arabic and English, "No one is ever illegal." As security guards closed the curtains and began escorting people from the auditorium, the students jumped from the stage, pumping their fists, chanting victoriously, "Si se pudo, si se pudo,"Spanish for "Yes we could!"

The Minuteman Project, an organization of volunteers founded in 2004 by Mr. Gilchrist, aims to keep illegal immigrants out of America by alerting law enforcement officials when they attempt to cross the border.The group uses fiery language and unorthodox tactics to advance its platform. "Future generations will inherit a tangle of rancorous, unassimilated, squabbling cultures with no common bond to hold them together, and a certain guarantee of the death of this nation as a harmonious ‘melting pot,'" the group's Web site warns.

The pandemonium that ensued as the evening's keynote speaker took the stage was merely the climax of protest that brewed all week.A number of campus groups, including the Chicano caucus, the African-American student organization, and the International Socialist organization, began planning their protests early this week when they heard that the Minutemen would be arriving on campus.

The student protesters, who attended the event clad in white as a sign of dissent, booed and shouted the speakers down throughout.They interrupted Mr. Stewart, who is African-American, when he referred to the Declaration of Independence's self-evident truth that "All men are created equal," calling him a racist, a sellout, and a black white supremacist.

A student's demand that Mr. Stewart speak in Spanish elicited thundering applause and brought the protesters to their feet. The protesters remained standing, turned their backs on Mr. Stewart for the remainder of his remarks, and drowned him out by chanting, "Wrap it up, wrap it up!" Mr. Stewart appeared unphased by their behavior. He simply smiled and bellowed, "No wonder you don't know what you're talking about."

"These are racist individuals heading a project that terrorizes immigrants on the U.S.-Mexican border," Ryan Fukumori, a Columbia junior who took part in the protest, told The New York Sun. "They have no right to be able to speak here."

The student protesters "rush to vindicate themselves with monikers like ‘liberal' and ‘open-minded,' but their actions, their attempt to condemn the Minutemen without even hearing what they have to say, speak otherwise," the president of the Columbia College Republicans, Chris Kulawik, said. On campus, the Republicans' flyers advertising the event were defaced and torn down.

The College Republicans expressed their concern about the lack of free speech for opposing viewpoints on the Columbia campus in the wake of the evening's events. "We've often feared that there's not freedom of speech at Columbia for more right wing views — and that was proven tonight," the executive director of the Columbia College Republicans, Lauren Steinberg, said.

The Minutemen's arrival at Columbia drew protesters from around the city as well. An hour before Messrs. Stewart and Mr. Gilchrist took the stage, rowdy protests began outside the auditorium on Broadway, where activists chanted, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the Minutemen have got to go!"

What a fine job our institutions of higher learning are doing teaching these kids the ideals of free speech and respectful exchange of ideas. They're all turning into little brown shirts, only the mantra is Leftism rather than nationalism.

Black White Supremacist?

These people are idiots. I hope that comment makes the rounds.

That's about as good as anti immigrant immigrants.

These goons really screwed up assaulting people and carrying banners in Arabic.

Sounds like things were lose on security planning for this event.

W

What in the world is happening? Who are these people? Has this country gone mad?

Originally Posted by jean

What in the world is happening? Who are these people? Has this country gone mad?

In order:

1. The effects of the Leftist indoctrination our kids are getting in school.
2. Our Liberally indoctrinated kids.
3. Yes, and that is in many ways the specific intent of the powers that be.

Hmmm...when growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, I was taught that college campuses were places of civil discourse and debeate of conflicting ideas and schools of thought. Places where those in conflict with the status quo could have their voices heard and their ideas considered or rejected bases on merit, not by how many or how violent their supporters.

My, how things have changed.

The "students" who acted to suppress the dissenting viewpoint here should be expelled from school and forever bared from any future federal student aid.

They're all turning into little brown shirts, only the mantra is Leftism rather than nationalism.

Yeppers. Now how does one deal with "Brown Shirts" before they gain real political power?

Originally Posted by Sindawe

Hmmm...when growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, I was taught that college campuses were places of civil discourse and debeate of conflicting ideas and schools of thought. Places where those in conflict with the status quo could have their voices heard and their ideas considered or rejected bases on merit, not by how many or how violent their supporters.

My, how things have changed.

The "students" who acted to suppress the dissenting viewpoint here should be expelled from school and forever bared from any future federal student aid.

They're all turning into little brown shirts, only the mantra is Leftism rather than nationalism.

Yeppers. Now how does one deal with "Brown Shirts" before they gain real political power?

Last time around we carpet bombed them. Something tells me that won't be the solution this time, though it has its merits...

Straightening my tie

Speaking as an

English
Scottish
Irish
German

Nigerian
Ghanian

Bengali
Malaysian

Caribbean

with a bit of Jewish for flavoring

I am offended when this gang of racist yokels attempt to dictate how I should identify myself. I know who my ancestors are and I will not bend to being so simply categorized.

Since so few people in the voting public shares their point of view I consider them unpaid laborers working for us for free.
It was seeing just attitudes as theirs exhibited that got me to be involved in the movement.

I suspect most of them were foreign exchange students.

We should examine how many seats at these universities are filled with foreign students while American Kids try to make it at community colleges.