“The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, and Occupy Cal
by zunguzungu
At about 11:30 a.m. yesterday, a police officer told me and about eight other students that, and I quote, “the grass is closed.” We were going to sit under a tree and discuss things, and two police officers were watching us vigilantly to make sure we didn’t suddenly do something violent like try to put up tents. As we moved towards the tree, the first police officer stepped up and informed us that we could not walk from the broad concrete steps of Sproul Hall, where about a hundred people were sitting and talking, and sit on the grassy area just to the north of it. “The grass is closed,” she said.
If you meditate on these words until they become a mantra, you will learn some profound things about how police authority works. What could it possibly mean to declare that “the grass is closed”? Who could have the authority to say so? I had always considered that stretch of grass to be public; I’ve often been among the hundreds of students who eat their lunch there, every day, and 11:30 a.m. is a time of day when it is common to eat lunch. I have had conversations with other students sitting on that very grass, many times. Why was it that I could not do so now? Why had this stretch of grass suddenly become un-public and closed off? No signs said so, and no police tape marked it off. At the far end of that grassy area, in fact, several people were actually sitting on the grass. But those people were sitting there eating lunch. Because we were part of the group which was sitting on the steps of Sproul Hall, clearly, the grass had been declared off limits to us.
To make things more interesting, it immediately transpired that the other police officer had, in fact, already given them permission to sit on the grass. And in an instant, the arbitrariness of the rule was made evident and undeniable. Two different students indignantly asserted that that police officer right there told us we could sit here. When the second officer said nothing to contradict them, when he failed to back her up on the closed-ness of the grass, she wordlessly stepped back, keeping her face expressionless behind her sunglasses. She didn’t apologize or take back what she said. She simply stopped trying to enforce a rule after its utter and complete arbitrariness had been made clear. To put this as simply as possible, she elected not to use force in defense of a rule which had just been shown to have no basis other than the momentary decision of a police officer accustomed to telling people where they can and cannot stand.
As part of my ongoing private project to be less scared of police — because I am scared of police — I said to her, in as level and direct a tone as I could manage, “This is why we don’t trust you.” And she again elected to say nothing. She didn’t have to. The truth of power, in this situation, is that the policy is what the police will use their force to enforce. They don’t have to have a legitimate reason, nor are they embarrassed when it is shown that the “grass is closed” only because someone with authority said so. And the grass only became open because someone with more authority said so. Such people are not to be trusted.
This was a very modest lesson in how power works. On Wednesday, several thousand UC Berkeley students learned a much bigger lesson, but in many ways it was exactly the same lesson: the rule is what the people with the force to enforce it say it is. And it becomes the rule when you either obey it, or when they use their force to make you obey it.
If you’ve seen this video, you understand what the police were willing to do in order to make people stop standing on the grass between police and tents:
The person on the left is a colleague of mine, and I’ve seen his swollen hand and watched him limp and talked to him about what happened. I saw how physically shaken up he was, several hours after being beaten, and I went with a friend to get an Ace bandage for his hand. On the right, you can see someone I know who acquired several cracked ribs. I could go on.
Or this video, in which you see the police yanking the director of the Townsend Center for the Humanities to the ground by her hair, applying choke-holds with batons, and punching people in the face:
These are not abstractions or “power” as a theoretical concept. This was power made frighteningly manifest, on the bodies of human beings who did not obey a police order to get off the grass, the very exact same grass I was talking about earlier.
Why were the tents so important? Why is that so many people allowed the police to beat them rather than get out of the way? Why was the solidarity of linked arms more important to them than the pain and indignity and inconvenience of being beaten or arrested? Why did the police hurt people to get those tents? Why did the UC administration send the police to get them, and to use the predictably necessary and predictably supplied amount of violent force to get those tents?
These are not questions with easy answers. But in a letter addressed “To the Extended UC Berkeley Community” — and which I’ve posted here — Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, George Breslau (Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost), and Harry LeGrande (Vice Chancellor for Studies Affairs) indicate that they approve of what the police did on Wednesday, and argue that what happened was a simple and predictable result of people’s refusal to obey clear and reasonable policy. They draw a distinction between the “impressive, peaceful noontime rally on Sproul on behalf of public education” and the encampment that followed it, which they claim “marred” the “peaceful protest and mobilization.” On the basis of this distinction, they argue that what was done by the police was reasonable and necessary:
We want to clarify our position on “no encampments” so you better understand why we do not allow this to occur on our campus. When the no-encampment policy was enacted, it was born out of past experiences that grew beyond our control and ability to manage safely. Past experiences at UC Berkeley, along with the present struggles with entrenched encampments in Oakland, San Francisco, and New York City, led us to conclude that we must uphold our policy.
In order to prevent a situation “beyond our control and ability to manage safely” from arising, he empowered the Alameda County Sheriff’s department to bring riot cops in to do what riot cops do, which is control people by hurting them until they comply. This triumvirate of administrators feel that what happened was a controlled and safely managed situation.
As opposed to what, I wonder? Well, a massive crowd of students staged an ongoing, overnight sit-in in 1985 and 1986. And while the “past experiences” he’s talking about might be the tree sitters of a couple years ago, the much better historical analogy really is the 1980’s campaign by UC students to force the UC system to divest from companies doing business in Apartheid South Africa, because that movement was also a broad-based demand — using the same kinds of tactics and facing the same kind of police opposition — to force the administration to administrate differently:
In early 1977, as a response to the increased struggle in South Africa, Campuses United Against Apartheid (CUAA) formed to demand divestment of university holdings in companies doing business in South Africa. Mass arrests at Santa Cruz and Stanford sparked demonstrations up and down the state including a sit-in at Berkeley. A discussion between students and regents about South Africa was scheduled in Wheeler auditorium. When only a few regents turned out to hear student comments, students started an occupation of Wheeler Hall. In 1978, 10,000 petition signatures were collected demanding that the UC system hold a hearing on their investments by May 5. When there was no response, sit-ins were held at the LA regents meeting and at 5 campuses.
Here’s a picture of the “shantytown” the students built at UCB, outside the Chancellor’s office:
As Jonathan Simon recalls,
Twenty five years ago this spring, with the apparent approval of Chancellor Ira Mike Heyman (who was off campus that day and I hope badly misled by his advisers) the University authorized a massive police onslaught against a group of mostly student protesters who had built “shanty” structures of found wood and cardboard in the broad lane adjoining California Hall to protest the University’s continued investment in corporations doing business in South Africa. Multiple police forces deployed with riot gear to clear a peaceful Shanty town in an ironic role play of real Apartheid tactics in South Africa.
And you know what? Those UC students won. In July of 1986, the University of California pulled its $3.1 billion investment out of companies doing business in South Africa, and the California governor, a Republican, changed course and came out in favor of divestment (when facing re-election). The UC regents (and the California governor who appoints them) ended up doing what the students of the University of California told them to do. This is what’s at stake: who gets to make decisions about the University of California.
I feel a lot of déjà vu in reading about these events. According to the UC administration, who have offered a lot of empty words in support of Occupy Wall Street in past emails, it wasn’t the aims of the protesters they opposed but their tactics. As they go on to elaborate:
This decision is largely governed by practical, not philosophical, considerations. We are not equipped to manage the hygiene, safety, space, and conflict issues that emerge when an encampment takes hold and the more intransigent individuals gain control. Our intention in sending out our message early was to alert everyone that these activities would not be permitted. We regret that, in spite of forewarnings, we encountered a situation where, to uphold our policy, we were required to forcibly remove tents and arrest people.
Allow me to retort: what they really mean is that the University of California is not, in fact, governed by “a philosophy,” but by the reverse: an active refusal to require a philosophy in justifying its choices. That way he can write that “UC Berkeley as an institution shares many of the highest principles associated with the OWS movement,” but also actively work in opposition to people’s attempts to put those principles into practice. This is an arbitrary line in the sand, drawn by an administration that is unflinchingly willing to use whatever means necessary to maintain their ability to draw arbitrary lines. Your philosophy is not wanted here, they are saying; in the name of practical considerations — which they define — you will be governed by government. And so the fact that students are trying to “democratize the regents,” as a popular chant puts it, is exactly the threat. A sentence like this one:
We are not equipped to manage the hygiene, safety, space, and conflict issues that emerge when an encampment takes hold and the more intransigent individuals gain control.
is just another way of saying that when “intransigent” individuals refuse to acknowledge the university’s authority, the administration won’t be able to exercise its authority, so it will therefore need to exercise its authority. This is exactly as tautological and contradictory a line of “reasoning” as it sounds, a rhetorical snake eating its own tail. To maintain hygiene, the students cannot use tents to keep themselves warm; to manage the space, students must be kept out; to address “conflict issues,” students had to be attacked; and to keep the students safe, they will be beaten.
The language falls apart at this point, because it’s not “philosophy” that’s driving any of this, but the question of who has the right to speak and be heard about what the university is for. Which is why the next paragraph truly descends into absurdity, the one where you realize you are not dealing with an educator, but with a university Ministry of Truth:
It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience. By contrast, some of the protesters chose to be arrested peacefully; they were told to leave their tents, informed that they would be arrested if they did not, and indicated their intention to be arrested. They did not resist arrest or try physically to obstruct the police officers’ efforts to remove the tent. These protesters were acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience, and we honor them.
What he describes — occupying space in a way that nonviolently prevents the police from doing what they want — is actually the very definition of “non-violent civil disobedience.” On the one hand, it is utterly non-violent: linking arms and holding on to each other as the police try to knock you apart is not “violent” but is precisely the opposite. It is the endurance of violence. And second, it is civil disobedience, again, precisely by definition. They were disobeying civil authorities, obeying the authority of their own consciences and solidarity instead
I want to skim past this sentence on to the next part, however which is in some ways the most remarkable part: he argues that the “tradition of peaceful civil disobedience,” which deserves honor, is a tradition of obedience to civil authorities. He says that “we honor” those who do not obstruct the administration’s decisions, and that those who are “acting in the tradition of peaceful civil disobedience” are, it turns out, those who obey authority.
This is not even ideology. This is simply nonsense. UCI professor Rei Terada has a great piece on what the administrator’s language might mean, but for me the important point to make is a much simpler one: they aren’t defending what they did — which would require admitting what they did — but only obfuscating it in language so bad that I can’t decide whether to call it vapid or actively dishonest. “Civil Disobedience” has always been, manifestly and unmistakably, a tradition of disobeying the civil authorities. I feel silly even needing to spell that out. And I feel embarrassed to work as an educator in the employ of anyone who would stand behind such specious stupidity. Linking arms and occupying the space between the police and their objective is a tactic used by just about every example of civil disobedience I can think of. It is, quite frankly the single best and most iconic example of the thing he says it is not. He is chewing up these words until they have become meaningless. Calling this language “Orwellian” is not hyperbole or exaggeration.
If he wants, Chancellor Birgeneau can approve of what the police did on Wednesday. If he wants to believe and argue that it is justifiable to try to break the bodies of students in hope of breaking their spirits, then let him believe it and argue it and then try to justify it. Let him tell us that when students put up tents on Sproul Plaza, the police will beat them until they take those tents down. Let him declare forthrightly that when students stand on grass at the wrong time and place — a time that is subject to the capricious and arbitrary decrees of the police and those who call them in — the administration believes its authority and responsibility is to beat them until they comply.
They have not said this. Birgeneau and his executive administrators are hiding behind meaningless language rather than talk openly and honestly about what everyone who was there or has seen those videos knows to be true: the UC will hurt you if you obstruct them or challenge their authority, even nonviolently. Free speech is a function of free thinking, and on the campus of free speech, Birgeneau should be free to say and think what he pleases, even if what he says is that those who do not obey will be beaten into submission. But let us hear him say that, if that’s what he believes. Let him admit and stand behind the decision he has made.
I think this is some of the best writing on power and principles I have every seen. Keep up this kind of thinking and reporting. It’s incredibly worthwhile.
Are you kidding me? The behavior of the folks rioting is laughable. How about going and getting a job????? That is a concept. Chancellor Birgeneau is embarassed at the behavior of those inciting this crap as he should be. Shame on Cal for this. I can’t believe I went to this school and this is how we act. We are lucky to have a chancellor that actually puts up with all this crap. This is America. Stop whining, get a job, and then watch the government take all of your money via taxes. Then you can protest. And what is this protest about. Everyone has a different story. This is incredibly embarassing and represents a fringe group of losers that are not satisfied with their lot in life. Apologies to the Chancellor. He should step down and go somewhere where he does not have to put up with this crap
I agree with you that the Chancellor should step down. 🙂
Straight from the authoritarian ‘everything is your fault’ party line… And then you swan dive into how the government, as a system, takes your money. I guess it’s only a systemic problem if it happens to you right? So much consistency.
Thanks John, your absolutely right, the students and professors who where demonstrating should get a job.
I’m relieved at how clearly your comprehend and then described this situation.
John: They’re university students. They’re going to school. They’re getting an education, so they can understand things about how the world works, and learn to care about people besides themselves. Best to quietly drop your head back into the feeding trough before they spot you too….
She not he. Interesting that gender was not noticed. Only “he” can be in charge. There might be a few other blind spots as well.
Curtis: it’s a different Chanceller. UCB’s chancellor is a male, UCD’s is female. I was talking about the former.
I LOVE that movie!
Several good points, and the administration’s letter is laughable on civil disobedience. However:
1. The “We are not equipped . . .” line is merely disingenuous. They would rather take the PR hit for a nipped bud than for a full uprooting. The point is naked and cold.
2. I don’t understand your remark about not trusting the police. Let me ask this: how do you think student/citizen behaviour in the present general context would differ if more students “trusted” the police?
[…] I watch the terrible videos of students being assaulted at Berkeley(scroll down the page)—Aaron’s account is a must […]
1) have a goal
2) have a method
3) test the waters
4) assess
5) learn/adapt
6) tweak the method to probe the organism further
7) repeat
why is that so hard? it’s science.
they’re using it on you. use it back.
dont waste time with fancy ideas and sophists. it’s all a distraction. you succeed. or you fail.
i’m betting fail. 99% of all ventures to change things fail. that’s why.
but i’m hoping otherwise.
Thanks, Aaron, this is great. I’m linking to it at New APPS.
Beautiful, thoughtfu, incisive essay. I’m grateful to John Protevi for linking it at New APPS, which is how I came across your blog, which will now be on my reading list.
I have one comment: I expected you to begin your rhetorical analysis with the opening statement, “We are not equipped to manage …the issues….” Pace Teal Ehm, I think this is not at all disingenuous, but rather reveals the real problem, the core of the administration’s fear.
First, it is the only truthful sentence in the whole official statement. They really *aren’t* equipped to manage OWS encampments — which is precisely the point of the encampments, in fact. (If they could be managed by the existing power structures, they would have no impact.)
Second, the administration is not being _asked_ to manage anything, though they seem to genuinely not understand this. OWS in its various incarnations has shown the participants do very well on their own, thank you very much. This is, in fact, the core challenge to the Powers That Be: OWS is rejecting the hierarchical structure of our society, the plutocracy of the 1%, in the most fundamental, practical way.
Third, the end of the sentence, with its assumption that inevitably a few “intransigent” individuals “gain control,” not only shows a complete lack of understanding of OWS, but an utter inability to conceive that any group of people can operate non-hierarchically.
The response of the UC administration mirrors surprisingly closely that of the many bank branches that have called police in to arrest people who want to close their accounts, and in both cases the response reveals the deep-seated fear that OWS will succeed in showing people that they no longer have to accept the terms of the various contracts that control behavior in the private sphere.
[…] [toread] “The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancel… – […]
Last summer I returned home on a Saturday from a very long bike ride. My bike ($1,900) was locked to a bike rack on the back of my truck. A second cable lock attached the bike to the hitch.
I was parked in the front of my apartment complex, I could see my truck and bike through my ground floor window, the bike and truck were about 30′ from my front door.
I was inside putting stuff away and I heard a loud bang. I looked out my window just in time to see a guy putting my bike in the bed of his truck, which was ass end to mine. (I guess he attached something and broke both locks.) I grabbed my phone and ran outside but forgot my gate key, so I could’t catch him.
I called the police, three cars showed up, five police in total. They were pretty nice about it until one cop “got in my face” and demanded to know why I was illegally parked, none of the other cops said anything to him, even though a parking sign with hours was posted 10′ behind me, which he was facing; “No Parking 7a.m to 4 p.m Monday through Friday, except weekends and school holidays.”
It really is weird how I got a sense of things right away. This guy was obviously a rookie and his fellow cops were “unleashing” him on me. I pointed the sign out to him and, just like you post, he didn’t apologize, he just stepped back. I asked him why he chose to see me as a law breaker and not a victim. I asked him how he intended to perform his job with that mindset.
I shudder to this day imagining him being the one responding to a rape victim. “Ma’am, do you realize you’re parked in a no-parking zone?”
(BTW, my renters insurance covered the theft)
EDIT: Sign = No Stopping 7a.m. – 4 p.m. School Days.
To be fair and balanced, I recently drove to my local 7-11 at 2.a.m. for a sugar fix. I was coming out of the 7-11 and a cop approached me and asked me if my dog was viscous. He was a really mean looking cop, about 6 1/2 feet, all muscle, crew cut, and square all over. My dog, a Bichon Frise, was in the truck. I was really shocked and dangerously suspicious. But he ended up playing with my dog for about five minutes and we (me, my dog, him and his partner) hung out in front of a cigar store for about half an hour talking about police dogs. He was a really fun guy, a total social butterfly.
Now I know where all the nice cops are, on the graveyard shift…wonder why……
Cheers pal. I do apratcipee the writing.
So… no camp on a camp-us? harhar…
In Germany the highest court ruled that doing nothing, even with linked arms, is not resisting arrest or anything aggressive. It is resisting if you use a chain or something else than your body.
This is a fantastic analysis!
Especially nodding at your point that the letter makes an “active refusal to require a philosophy in justifying its choices.”
Mind if I circulate this among my students?
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Awesome … very well written, and compelling.
I will be passing this forward.
I´m chocked, I´m an olderly grandmother in sweden, but I follow the occupy movement. There is nothing in swedish newspaper about this, well we have right-wing gov so I really should not be so suprised, excuse my english, I do my best
best wishes from Lisa in sweden
The media in Norway doesn’t mention anything about this either, while our scandinavian/european politicians are busy limiting our freedom by impassing laws that allow them to surveil which webistes we visit, who & when we call or recieve SMS (these laws will apply to every citizen).
Welcome to the New World Order.
yes I am sure that they (gov) know what internetpages you visit our phone calls, etc., I have said the same as you a long time and everyone says I’m conspiratorial, which I also am, but this is true
You can read about some of these laws here: http://www.laquadrature.net/ACTA
The police tactics are terrible here – not morally, but in the sense that they are obviously self-defeating.
Civil disobedience tactics work because it is only “violence” against property and defiance of laws. If the police respond with violence against actual people (which everyone with any human pity is moved by) then the majority will side with the human victims of police violence and the protests will likely become more entrenched.
Ideally, if resources were available, the police should instead ensure that they only ever response with “like for like” tactics.
Identify a single individual in the protest, then visit the home of that protester’s parents, and erect some tents on the parents’ garden, and maybe also do some marching to mess up the grass, and play recordings of crowds chanting slogans. If challenged by the parents, they should respond, “Your son/daughter has indicated to us, by their behaviour, that if we want to make a point, then the acceptable way to do it is to occupy some property, cause minor damage and make a loud noise. If you don’t think this is acceptable, please let them know. When they stop, we will stop.”
Clever, but what have the parents got to do with it? Your argument leads to the conclusion that anyone who wishes to protest should go to the parents’ of any individual who represents the other side eg, police officers or University employees, and protest on their property. Seems childish to me “If you don’t behave how I want you to behave I’m going to go tell your Dad”
If the powers that be had such faculties for humor and irony, there probably wouldn’t be a need to protest in the first place.
Sid, you just gave me an idea: we should identify some violent police and protest in the street of their homes, and their parents homes. Let their neighbors know what kind of people they live next to.
[…] OccupyCal, the police tell the protesters that the grass is closed. At about 11:30 a.m. yesterday, a police officer told me and about eight […]
[…] from a terrific long-read by Aaron Bady, aka zunguzungu, on his experience at the OWS-inspired “Occupy Cal” […]
exactly. don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. the obfuscation is the worst.
[…] Sunday Reading. You may have also seen his piece “The Grass Is Closed” on the arbitrariness of power this weekend, already linked […]
[…] https://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/the-grass-is-closed-what-i-have-learned-about-power-from-… […]
It does make me think of Robert Anton Wilson’s quip that someone should tell Professor of General Semantics S.I. Hayakawa that someone is issuing nonsense under his name as president of San Francisco State College during some student protests.
I missed the tear gas in the ’60s but I was at Sproul Plaza in ’86. Nothing has changed. There is nothing to see here move along….
Orwellian Newspeak at it’s best.
[…] • “The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, and Occupy Cal (Zungugungu) […]
“…If he wants, Chancellor Birgeneau can approve of what the police did on Wednesday. ”
He does approve, and probably ordered it. What you mean is ‘publicly approve, like he’s got the moral courage of a responsible adult’.
Are you kidding me? The Chancellor should not have to deal with this crap. Shame on yhou
Hey Aaron,
I don’t know if you’ll see this comment, but I hope you do.
I am an alumnus of UC Berkeley; I attended from 2000 to 2005 and graduated with a double major in math and physics, after which I went to grad school. I was on the Berkeley campus as recently as this summer, though as I no longer reside in California I don’t get to visit all that often. I give this information just to point out that I have a personal, if somewhat tenuous, connection to the events transpiring on campus right now.
I really want to thank you and everyone at Occupy Berkeley for the work that you’ve been doing, and you specifically for the writing that you’ve done on the subject. I read your blog pretty frequently but don’t think I’ve ever commented, but I wanted to do so now. It absolutely breaks me up inside to see what’s happening at my alma mater these days, and the depths to which the administration has driven it. Berkeley was always special to me, not just as some place that I’d gone to school and received a great education for comparatively little (though still too much for many people to afford) money, but in a symbolic way too. I feel like I just dodged the shitstorm of tuition-raising and all that other crap that hit just as I left, but I also regret not being around today to be part of what’s going on. Watching these videos is depressing on such a visceral level; I honestly don’t know how you folks have been able to stand up to it the way that you have.
For those of us who can’t offer our physical presence, I hope there’s some way that we can lend material support to you and the rest of the people fighting the good fight. You obviously have my goodwill, for what that’s worth.
all the best,
Jerry
[…] zunguzungu: “The Grass is Closed:” What I Have Learned About Power From the Police, Chancellor Birge…. […]
He doesn’t seem to understand the difference between physical civil disobedience (is that a redundancy?) and violent civil disobedience.
“The riot squad, they’re restless
They need somewhere to go”
“At midnight, all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
Who knows more than they do”
Bob Dylan, “Desolation Row,” August 1965
[…] Here’s some great commentary: “The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, an…. […]
[…] But since then I’ve read this piece about campus police beating students at Berkeley. […]
The premise for police violence is lies. A daisy chain is not violence. What the police did was deliberate and avoidable violence.
A baton charge, which is what they used, is used in riot control. A baton charge maximizes pain and injury.
But even in a baton charge, you don’t strike the abdomen, you strike the legs. A few swift strikes to the legs will hurt a lot and leave painful bruises that last weeks. You only strike at the abdomen when you intend to damage vital organs and break ribs and that is only done when there are no other options available and the cost of not doing that would result in further harm).
Not only that, but the way the police did it left them police vulnerable to self defense tactics (including arm locks, takedowns, and counterstrikes) that any protester could have instinctively used when being dealt a poorly guarded ribbing. Indeed such instinctive defense reaction can be *expected* from those with some self-defense training. (And shouldn’t we all be trained in self-defense?) Such self-defense certainly would have escalated the situation to a worse place.
But if they had used better crowd control and diplomacy tactics to deal with the protesters, the entire operation could have been avoided altogether.
The lies used as the premise for the action (“not non-violent” (sic)) will again be used to justify and fight the lawsuits that will probably come. It was an embarrassment to the police and to Berkeley. If they don’t know it by now, even more embarrassing. They should try to apologize and settle out of court.
watch these videos and you know that violence is coming to america. towards the police.
guess the cause? the police.
[…] In fact, here, just read this whole thing by Aaron Bady. […]
[…] “The Grass Is Closed”“The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, an…. […]
I think the article is right on all points, accurate and morally correct. It’s just that it is very difficult to drum up deep sympathy when you’re from countries where you wish the police would act like this. Most of the globe’s population live in situations where the police action in evidence here would be described as restrained and reasonable. The Occupy Movement is worthy and one I fully support. I applaud all of you. I hope the indignation you feel helps bind all of us to struggle under a power imbalance.
From South Africa
1st Lee,
A very well written account of what happened on campus.
The following are my thoughts and please forgive me if I am out of line.
The university system basically survives and in some way flourishes on endowments and donations made by companies and rich alums. Yes, UCB has been the birthplace of many a protests in the US which has bought about a change. However, the current leadership at UCB does not relate to the OWS movement. If a chancellor and the police can beat up students to protect the (future) safety of students, then what do those students take away from this?.
Takeaway A: Don’t mess with the system.
Takeaway B: If you mess with the system, you will be beaten (even if you were trying to peacefully stand in between the police and the tents.
Listen, we are part of a bigger system, a system which is lopsided if I can say that. One side has the rules, their interpretation of rules and has police to arbitrarily implement the rules and on the other side it is you the students that wants to implement their rights and stand up for what you believe.
I think it is time for the Chancellor to GO. University leaders are like parents or grand parents on campus. If a University leader has to resort to beating up students, then the leader is NOT a leader, they are a dictator.
More power to the students.
Another point I would like to make.
sacrifices start from the top. If the university costs are GOING up and clearly the parents who support the students are not making more money, REDUCE the costs.
Here are the steps I would take:
A. Take Pay Cuts. Management should take a paycut of the same amount as the increase in costs. the reason being, if you cannot find a way to manage costs, then take a pay cut. there is no reason why a Chancellor should make 300K a year. This is as bad as CEO compensations.
B. Streamline operations, cut jobs on campus that are redundant.
C. Cut programs that clearly are not making money
D. Allow non-degree students to take classes for credit, in classes that have space. If there are 4 open slots and the professor is getting paid anyways and the electricity does not go up, then allow 4 paying non-degree seeking students in those classes.
Again, the University is there to serve the students, NOT to beat them up.
Are you kidding me? What world do you live in?
A thoughtful and thorough essay on how the police action at Sproul Plaza sadly illustrates how history tends to repeat itself, despite the progress we may think we’ve made. This piece raises some excellent points.
[…] zunguzungu, at the Occupy Cal protest at the UC Berkeley campus suggests that the university’s nonsensical […]
looks like workers vs the bourgeois—ie, the police workers (many hispanics) vs the whiny anarchist-bourgeois (and mostly whitey-zionist and “feminist”) students of UC Cal-CO. Roll ’em, juras.
Thank you for clearly labeling the nature of your misclassification bias.
a very well written piece, may there be more and a revolution to boot!!
Excellent post and analysis. The fact that Chancellor equated “linking arms” with “violence” (even obstruction!) was absolutely insane.
Great blog, by the way. You just gained another reader!
[…] Buch füllen könnte. Wer sich dafür interessiert, oder für eine Lektion, was Macht ist, der kann hier einen schönen Text […]
[…] the Berkeley events here and here (with some video of the police breaking up the occupation). Jonathan Simon is good on this […]
Haven’t you all figured out how to suck it up, apply for protest permits, and deal with the red tape that the rest of the country has to put up with?
Maybe you won’t get kicked off the grass when you’ve figured out how to fill out applications. While you’re at it, fill out a few applications for some jobs instead of playing Red Rover with the cops. Or here’s a better idea, GO VOTE. Start writing to your legislators. Get involved in the community’s selection of public service officials. If you’re so afraid of the “storm troopers,” why don’t you use your massive powers in numbers of the 99% and start making a change the effective way — by being an active, participating citizen in this country.
Keep sitting in fields and you’ll always be a part of the 99%.
I love hecklers on a (relatively) poorly known site. I guess you’re doing good work zunguzungu. That aside, in 1999 at UCLA I was in a “riot,” otherwise known as a place riot cops showed up. Students who were curious about why cops were in the streets ( a couch had been burned a few blocks over) were literally beaten for rubbernecking. The media coverage was completely bizarre; a helicopter circled that burning couch like it was Watts in ’68. Most of us (maybe the 99.9%) were studying and just curious as to why snipers had set up on the roofs. This was before youtube and the blogosphere. We couldn’t get our message out. It was all to strange even to try. Maybe things will change now. Maybe. At least its harder for them to lie. In other news, nice use of Foucault!
[…] crowds on campus grounds while resorting to substantial violence. Berkeley was first, and here you can read an excellent essay on what happened there. And then, on this Friday, there was a […]
Well said!
I remember when folks tore down the fence around peoples park with their bare hands during those protests. Very impressive to see folks wiggle the fence until the metal fatigue gave way, Fence came down, National Guard came in and the wooden bullets flew, tear gas. Park stayed. Folks fled. Police had to go home, Illusions were dissipated like fog in the morning sun.
Story today is similar, and I hope that the message of the peaceful Occupy movement becomes a driver for the jobs program that we need, and that will restart our economy. We can take care of our people,and we can change the discussion.
Ideas have power, people have power.
Thanks.
[…] “The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birge… At about 11:30 a.m. yesterday, a police officer told me and about eight other students that, and I quote, “the grass is closed.” We were going to sit under a tree and discuss things, and two police officers were watching us vigilantly to make sure we didn’t suddenly do something violent like try to put up tents. As we moved towards the tree, the first police officer stepped up and informed us that we could not walk from the broad concrete steps of Sproul Hall, where about a hundred people were sitting and talking, and sit on the grassy area just to the north of it. “The grass is closed,” she said. […]
My son posted a link to this article on my FB page. In a nutshell, he is very liberal in his thought and action. As the prior sentence infers, I do not share his views. But we love and respect each other like a father and son do.
The events described, the protests, putting up tents, linking arms, defying police orders, peacefully are at the core of our culture. While I probably do not share all the views of the student protesters, I respect and will defend their right to do it. The actions of the police, the permission granted by the administration sicken me. The evil that sort of lying and violence unleashes will cause harm to our communities beyond the actions themselves.
Thank you for your very inciteful prose on the events and your apt description of abuse of power and for pointing out the arbitrariness of it.
[…] you took a minute to vote for it (it’s #40). The nominees make for fierce company, including Zunguzungu’s piece “The Grass is Closed” […]
[…] Aaron Bady of zunguzungu: “The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, an… is nominated. Zunguzungu should be on your must-read list […]
[…] blog post “The Grass Is Closed”: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, an… was nominated* for 3 Quarks Daily’s Politics and Social Science Prize! You can vote for it […]
[…] The Grass is Closed: What I Have Learned About Power from the Police, Chancellor Birgeneau, and Occu… by Aaron Bady […]
[…] Certainly this is true, and certainly it is, in and of itself, fairly damning: in his now infamous email to the “campus community,” Birgeneau claimed ignorance of what had happened, that his trip to […]
[…] Certainly this is true, and certainly it is, in and of itself, fairly damning: in his now infamous email to the “campus community,” Birgeneau claimed ignorance of what had happened, that his trip to […]
[…] attacked by police in November, discovering that — according to arbitrary police fiat — certain patches of grass were “closed” and others were not, for no reason other than that this space had recently experienced the psychic […]
[…] More often, though, the police exercise their legal authority—based nakedly on the violence they inflict or imply—to limit or prohibit being in a place. Gang injunctions, as prohibitions on being a black and/or latino youth in designated areas, are an obvious example of this. In such cases the state exercises its God function on individuals, letting them be, or not be. The police merely utter le non du père, the declaration of unlawful assembly, the “nein” to our Dasein. They tell us we cannot set foot on campus, that we must “stay away,” that we cannot sit in this hallway that happens to adjoin a bank whose presence, unlike ours, is never questioned. The grass is closed. […]
[…] handled the November 9th “Occupy Cal” thing last November — which I wrote about here – released their findings, only seven months later and squarely in the middle of summer […]
[…] Police Captain Margo Bennett, whose forces, acting with the at least implicit approval of UC Chancellor Birgeneau, assaulted students and professors. Captain Bennett (caput! yet another head!), had this to say […]
Are you kidding me? What world do you live in?