Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of zipe Rider. Oh you know, when in doubt, I can always count on Miles.
Great, the only child who didn't have headphones.
Why were we talking about night rider recently?
Because you were talking about if a cab includes night Rider? I think, okay, and then we're like, yeah, because like a billionaire like made the cop, Like the cop got shot, and then the billionaire shot in my face. Yeah, and then the bonaire the vanity.
To it because Michael Knight, Yeah, Michael Knight like got to choose how handsome he was, and he chose to look like David Hasselhoff, Like he that was like a self sculpted face. But also like the fact that it was a billionaire. Now, knowing what we know about billionaires, like, you can't trust it. He probably had that cop shot and then had his base designed to look like someone that he thought was handsome. Just kind of putting it all together. Now, anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien. That's
Miles Gray. This is the episode where we tell you what is trending, and we actually have a very special trending episode because one of the things that is trending, of course, is the student protests happening across the country that started at Columbia University, or at least like a big portion of the coverage has started at Columbia University. And we are thrilled to be joined by a former producer of this show, currently in grad school for journalism
at Columbia University. She's been doing some reporting on the student protests. Please welcome back to the show, Trician Moukarch.
Having me back, It's so fun to be back here right so long, I don't know.
And look at like yeah, and suddenly when like super producer Anna was like, y'all, Tricia's at Columbia and she's like up in it right now, like we should talk to them, like yeah, because when you look at the coverage of the student protests, depending on where you get your news, it could be either a peaceful protest or it could be a thing that's rife with anti semitism, or it could be so violent, but it may be the cop Like again, I think with everything surrounding the
situation in Gaza, like there's just so many realities people are experiencing, or at least different realities are being represented and presented to them. But for you being on the ground and it's happening at the university you're currently attending.
Can you just like give us an idea just sort of like how it all started, because I think a lot of people will just say, like these kids are like Hamas sympathizers who have lost the plot, or they're people who don't know what they're doing and it's like a fad. Can you just tell us, like how like point A to now where we're at, Like the escalation is clear now that students have like barricaded themselves into a building, Like it's it's like this is not.
Going away in any kind of normal way, But how did it all? Like walk us through this for a second?
Yeah, So I think that this has been a conversation on campus for a long time, like long before October seventh, and long before the last two weeks. It's just that in the last two weeks, the whole country's attention has zoomed in on the section of like two or three blocks. But people have been protesting for Palestine long before that as well. So I'll start just a little bit further back.
On October seventh, there were big protests on campus, both from the pro Israel side and from the pro Palestine side, and each group was in its own separate area and kind of chanting and being together. There was a lot of pain in the air. But since then there have been several propost time protests. There's been a huge amount of I think like discrimination and kind of danger to
those student protesters. Right from the very beginning around October seventh, there were these trucks that would constantly circle around campus with the faces of those students and their names and their personal contact information and their addresses, and those are being circulated everywhere essentially to encourage people to docs and threaten the propostime protesters.
Do you say trum.
Yeah, like at Harvard. We saw them at Harvard. I remember seeing the ones that was happening at Harvard.
Where they were like pull on LCD screens that were basically like video billboards docsing people exactly.
Okay, yeah, it's like this black truck like who knows who owns it. But besides are just these massive screens where they like play propaganda and I see.
I'm assuming Iran on is it right?
Iran is funding most of this, most of what's happening at Columbia. According to some mainstream media, who is being docs who is being kind of threatened in this way? Is it students on both sides, on the pro Israel and the pro Palestine side.
In my experience and understanding from the students that I've talked to, it's really been targeted at pro Palestine protesters, in pro Palestine students who have been protesting since October seventh, and I should say completely peacefully. They've been gathering on the steps and like having waving flags and stuff. But so those people were targeted, and the university took no real actionable steps to address that their students were being
threatened with really violent things. And then it, you know, people kept protesting. And then there was an attack a few months ago where several people who were former IDF soldiers used a chemical weapon to attack pro Postinian protesters on campus, and several of those students had to go to the hospital for several days because they're extremely nauseous,
they couldn't breathe right, they felt extremely lightheaded. And to think that there was a literal chemical weapon attack against pro Palestinian students on campus, or for that matter, any students on campus, it just like and that's something that wasn't covered by media.
Yeah, I mean that's like the skunk attack that I feel like, Yeah, I remember reading about and like I remember there's one version that was like it was some kind of chemical irritant, and then like in herrets, there were people saying that it was just a non toxic fart spray that the person purchased on Amazon.
So you're like, what what's happening? Like what like? So is what what?
Like?
So this year we're talking about people who actually were injured this like back in January and are still like recovering from that.
Yeah.
I think there's like students have said that there's long term effects of something like that, and I know that there was. I don't want to say an exact number and have that wrong, but there are several students who were hospitalized for several days as they were trying to be stabilized. So it wasn't just some joke kind of spray that you can buy at the dollar store. This
is something that's really dangerous. And I also wanted to say that the Columbia administration has been sending emails since October seventh to the whole school basically condemning anti Semitism, but not addressing any of the attacks or dosing or the other things that has been happening to Arab and
Muslim and Palestinian students. And so I think a lot of that is because of outside influences or the Columbia president recently testified in front of Congress, and we have a lot of doughnuts who are very insistent about how the school should act. But it's just it seems like a lot of the media coverage and the school has been very like it has just been ignoring how a lot of students on campus feel when they protest for gossip.
Yeah, I feel like one version, like I'm just looking at how the media has even talking about it today.
It's like very disingenuous and flippant. The New York Times was like trying to be like we know, like let's let's break it down for you. Why these demonstrations are just spreading so rapidly, and they're like calling it like contagious, like they're like it's almost like a disease, sort of like context that they're trying to set this up.
As there are people like in the Free Press, they there's a there was an article called camping out at Columbia's Communist Coachella.
I'm guessing that's not the energy.
Like, can you just sort of talk to specifically, like what students are experiencing, because so many people are wanting to be dismissive of of how students are organizing on campus and being like they're just doing it to fit in man, you know, and there's a lot of peer pressure for young people and they're not real they.
Don't really know what's going on. Is that true?
I think it's it's very different than it. What was it a communist Coachella?
Yeah, camping out of Colombia's Communist Coachella.
Yes, they had to, and is the sign of a good writer.
As you've probably learned in journalism schools, that's probably the first thing they teach here, like sick headlines equal vast alliteration, right.
Yeah, very credible to add the literation, completely credible. Yes, yeah, that that is not the situation at all. It's been quite well organized. And the students who are leading the protests, many of them are Palestinian and have family and friends and loved ones who have been killed in Gaza, And I think like to say that this is just some party, and like students who want to feel in on the hot topic of the day, is really dismissive to those experiences.
And also all the students who kind of feel the pain of their classmates and an ongoing genocide and are showing up to support.
Them, right because it like it's not just yeah, because I feel like there's so many other things, like especially for young people entering adulthood, looking at what their lives are going to look like post academia, and being like, is this even like a functioning society I'm entering, Like I feel like there's so many levels of frustration that young people are experiencing, especially on college, that this is
just like this swirling perfect storm of many things. But right now seeing a NonStop like anyone on social media is having to see just horrific image after horrific image of what's happening in Gaza, and like, how I don't understand how some people in the MEETERI are like and yeah, they think it's like some fad rather than like these people are deeply a fect by what is happening, and they're trying to exercise some amount of power over the administration.
Because can you like also tell us, like what you know the demands of like the why is also being the bunch of people are coming in with all kinds of takes, like they're paid actors or they're not, or they don't know what.
They're doing, or they don't even know what they want.
But can you speak to specifically, like what the demands are of the students of Columbia in regards to what is happening.
Yeah, so I think, like as you were saying, Maths, what's happening outside the gates is very different than what's happening inside the gates. So when you hear people like yelling violent things, that's probably outside the gates and those people aren't really in line with the actual demands of the protesters inside the gates. Where I've been on campus for the last two weeks and it's been very peaceful. It's been students sitting in their tents and like doing
their homework and studying for finals. And they're there to demand two main things. One is to disclose Columbia's investments in Israel and the others to divest and Columbia has had several movements for divestment, most notably in South Africa and so the students are following a similar model for that. And I think the third main call to action is they want the university to give amnesty to students who
are arrested by the NPD. This is over one hundred and eight people I think were arrested and those students are being suspended, evicted with very very little notice or even expelled. So they want amnesty for those students who are peacefully protesting, literally just sitting on the lawn when the NPD came and took them away.
So when you talk about Columbia, students have pushed for divestment in South Africa. That was during the apartheid period of South Africa in the eighties and they successfully, you know, they were on the right side of history. And you know, we're we're able to push Columbia University to do that correct.
Yeah, And the most recent development is that the students last night took over Hamilton Hall, which is one of the buildings on campus. And that's the same building that students in decades past have taken over to demand investment or protest against segregation and all these other big social problems that looking back on it on the past it's like of course, like of course they were right.
Yeah, well, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and keep talking about this.
We'll be right back and we're back and yeah.
So, I mean, it feels like we're seeing conflicting reports, Like we're seeing reports that the student protesters are like well funded sleeper cells, they're committed anti semi And obviously, as you mentioned, like there is anti Semitic things being chanted outside of the gates right, like as not not a part of the student protests, but anti Semitism is real, is a is.
A real problem.
Obviously, it's not part of this movement that people want it to be a part of, or that some some forces won't want it to be a part of. But can you just talk a little bit more about kind of what you're hearing from from the students who you who you're talking to and like sitting with you said, they're they're studying. There's also people in pain who have like lost family members to this conflict. But what yeah, what what else are you saying?
Yeah, so on on campus, it's like you walk in and on one of the lawns, there's all these like really right tents, like and largely it's like students kind of sleeping there, study being there, reading there on the encampment. At times, it's been really a joyful and happy environment.
I was speaking to someone of Pastinian heritage who said, being on the encampment and getting messages from his loved ones in Palestine and like having that connection being built is one of the safest and like most kind of liberated he's felt in many years. There's been a lot of singing and dancing. There were performances from all the various student dance groups, and there's been like a big
Shabbat dinner and celebrations for Passover. There was a moment when for Shabbat dinner, some of the Jewis students who had been suspended came to the gate, and then the jewistudents who were inside also came to the gate, and of course the suspended students weren't let in, but they kind of shared their meal and their like their space, even despite the divide. So it's been a lot of just kind of like yeah, showings of solidarity, showings of joy,
and in terms of what people are saying. In the beginning, before the NYPD came, it was a group of students who had, I think, were very intensely supporting the pro Palestine movement. After that, a lot of students who hadn't been that involved came because they were like, no matter what your stance on the issue is, it's not right for a university president to call that NYPD in to
arrest its own students. Even when the NYPD, of all people were like, they're totally peaceful, they're just getting cool.
Yeah, they were actually pretty chill.
You want to say, knock them for setting up tents, It's like, no, get them, they're violent.
They're like they're playing drums and stuff.
Yeah, and violent. We have quotloose rules here.
People might start dancing and men who knows what happened, then freedom may abound.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So even then, MYPD, we're kind of like why are we here? Like why are we doing this? And I think that motivated a lot of students, a lot of professors to come out and like stay in the enkempment. And since then, I mean, the media again portrays it as this constant chaos and violence and anti Semitism, and yes, there is a lot of that happening, especially outside of the Gates but largely it's been people just like living life.
Yeah, And I think that's what's kind of it's so hard, right, because there's been this you know, people talk about how anti Semitism is being weaponized against people who are merely trying to advocate for, you know, the autonomy and safety
of Palestinian people. And I'm like, what's that experience for you and other students who are like caught in this, Like you know, like you're you're morally outraged and you're trying to express that and next thing, you know, you find yourself being like confronted by the NYPD because that the administration.
Is calling for that help. Like does this make students?
I mean, obviously the students are very resilient because it doesn't seem like things are like diminished in any way.
They're in fact, they're escalating.
But like, is the feeling of like optimism, is it outrage mixed with optim you know what I mean? Like, what is what's that kind of emotion like for everybody involved? Because yeah, Like to your point, it's become the focus of the entire nation now, especially as campuses all over the country are now also having their own encampments and things like that, But like what, like what is that feeling in terms of like what the end game is or like how achievable the the goals of these encampments are.
I think there is there is a sense of optimism. It's hard to say that there's any one kind of overarching feeling because there's so many different views. And I certainly know students who are very perturbed about the whole situation. There's people who like graduated during COVID and they really wanted a graduation and it seems unlikely now that that will happen, and everyone is kind of like running on
low sleep and high stress. But I think in terms of the protesters themselves, they see that what they're doing is echoing history. They are optimistic and determined, and from my interviews with protesters, they're not going to take shit from the university. The university has tried to get them to stop. They came to the encampment with all these forms saying like if you leave by two pm yesterday,
so April twenty ninth, then they'll be okay. Otherwise they'll be suspended and maybe expelled and basically banned from university property. But there is just a vote and it was immediately like yes, we're staying. So I think that kind of reflects the fact that these students are determined, they are optimistic. And even in the South Africa protests, students occupied buildings for days before the university agreed to divest or agreed to like even think about divesting, so they realize it's
not a quick thing. They realize that I'll take sustained time and effort.
It's like wild to see because I just can't, like I just think of my own experience going to college like nearly twenty years ago or beat twenty years ago.
It's like my freshman year and you enter a college campus like there to like explore ideas and to like begin to express yourself and the ways that you're like and all these things that you're learning by going to college, and like to be in a situation now where that environment has been completely like flipped on its head and now it's like hostile and just is it's like really fucked up to just see that and then just to see like this, like to now see the administrations of
some of these schools just be hand in hand with like militarized police just feels like a complete fucking just just all kinds of fucked up that I'm like, that's, oh my god, it must fucking suck so bad for these kids.
But at the same time, like they're they're driven.
By a like a higher moral purpose than merely like lamenting the fact that like what has our school become. But also this is because they there's there's something very real and they're they're tangible outcomes that they're seeking.
Really adds color to this idea that we've heard people talk about the universities are you know, hedge fund and real estate companies with like an academic apparatus attached to them. It's like you're you're seeing that very sharp distinction where the hedge fund, you know, billion dollar you know, endowment people, and you know, the president to a lot of times, the you know, Larry Summers was the president of Harvard, like Larry's lover's the guy who is now just like
spokesperson for capitalism and fuck you to everybody else. But like it really just kind of puts into perspective like what these institutions actually are because it's not like the faculty is out there being like, yeah, get the fuck out of here and with the students, yeah, the learned people, and then the more operational, capitalistic actors are at the top, working with military police trying to Yeah.
And I think that's also reflected in the stuff we learned. So, like, we have this thing at Columbia called the Core curriculum, So I went there as an undergrad as well, and it's basically all the philosophy and literature that led us to Western society. And in decades past it's been very, very non critical, like there's been no discussions of colonialism or all the things that have gone wrong.
And actually students protested on Western by the way, I should just clarify the listener.
Yeah, yeah, that didn't translate to audio. So actually, like I believe in the nineties, students protested to diversify that whole Core curriculum and what we learned. So we added a few scholars who are non Western, and that's still a work in progress. It's still largely old, dead white men, but we have read some like Edward said and Gandhi and Franz Finan, and a lot of students are like, what is the point of discussing all of this in
a critical light? If we can just sit in our classrooms and like theoretically muse about this using big words, but we can't go out and protest with the ideas.
That we've learned, right, Yeah, it's a yeah, it's funny too, because I've seen Fenon's work be also like weaponized to be like that this guy is just also preaching violence and like not really taking the totality of what friends Fanan's work is to just be like and this is the handbook that these students are operating of off of, when I've seen more like fear mongerie type articles that
are completely trying to obscure like what's happening. And yeah, it's like, you know, we see this all the time. When people really begin to question and threaten the status quo of something like you get this huge, outsized response because you can see white supremacists have their demonstrations and the police are escorting them and because that's just a
pillar of what American ult it's First Amendment man. But then you have kids peacefully protesting and now we're talking about like just full on goon squads coming out to clear out like these these encampments, and it's just I mean, it's like it's so wild because at the same time you have these lead people in leadership are like what what what's getting into these kids' minds. It's like the ship that they're experiencing on the backs of the policies you create.
It's not a it's not a mystery.
It's like they're made to live in the same world and they have their analysis is just coming online much quicker than generations past who didn't quite have all of this information available to.
Them, like at such speed. Yeah and efficiency.
So yeah, thanks to TikTok's right, Trisia, I have to assume all the protesters are just on TikTok at all times, waiting and say they're not, but it is. I talk a lot about how like movies are an important gauge for like America's like conscious and unconscious biases, and just thinking about like how protesters are treated in a lot of mainstream movies, like especially in like the nineties.
Just like think of like PCU.
Have you guys seen PCU, Like where it just treats it's like a university where it's like everything's like so politically correct, and like all the protesters are just like people are protesting, like what their lunch order is and
so dismissive. But even like in Forrest Gump, like when he goes to the National Malt for like and like there's a massive protest happening, like they just portray it as like people following along in lines randomly, and like they portray like the Black Panther Party is like there's this one part where like a Black Panther leader is like shouting at Forrest Gump about like what he's angry about, and Forrest Gump leaves and the Black Panther leader keeps
shouting at the space Forrest Gump left, like he's like an anger automaton. And it's just like there's this mainstream sort of thing that's like we object to student protesters on the fact that they're annoying to us, right, you know, like they just like don't want to hear it, and it's pretty frustrating. And I feel like you see some of that coming out like where like there's just like this rush of different angles that are critical of the
student protest movement. It's like they're you know, like I was saying, it's like they're organized and like being paid by terrorist organizations. They're actually just doing it for like Instagram. They're actually like doing it so well that it's covering
up like some of the real news that's happening. That was one that like I saw recently, there's like a big op edge in I think it was the La Times where they were like student protesters, well, well meaning are like distracting from the real crimes that are being committed over there, but like so what they should not protest those crimes? Yeah, because like isn't that a mainstream media problem, not a student's trying to draw attention to the problem problem.
You know.
Yeah.
I feel like there's also like this pettiness from the media because in a way, the students are doing their body. Yeah,
they're imbiding the outrage. Even an objective journalist should have or not necessarily that you have to editorialize and have outrage within your reporting, but to at least objectively state what is happening, why people are doing it, and like what what the actual stakes are, rather than trying to obfuscate and try and be like, well, you know, some people said some really anti semitic stuff, So I think all these kids are actually just anti semitic, And it's like,
did you have you actually, are you reporting on the amount of Jewish students.
That are also participating in these demonstrations.
Because that would also put a huge dent in that very like you know, the lazy narrative that is used
to discredit what's happening. So yeah, I feel like there's this part of it too that I mean, because in a way I feel it like not like this envy, but I'm I'm like, fuck, man, I didn't have my shit together like that when I was in college, Like I didn't, like I knew what was wrong with the world, but they're just it just wasn't at that place where it was there was there were opportunities to do that all the time, like aside from like the Iraq War
and other demonstrations that I participated in, or like marriage equality and things like that. But in that moment, I'm like, so yeah, I'm like, damn man, like these they're fucking doing the right fucking thing right now for the right reasons, or you know, I'd say ninety five percent of the kids are right, and.
There's something to that.
I feel like, I'm sure on some level of the media like it forces them to look at themselves too and be like these kids are looking at how power flows, how hegemony works, how like finances work, how you know, how US foreign policy puts people in danger, and they're reacting to it in a way that you know, maybe we spent too much time talking about WMDs and yellow Cake and completely fucking missed the whole point, And now you have a group of kids who were like, dude,
we're not falling for the same shit anymore. So anyway, I'm just I'm I hope that this ends in the way that the students want and for, in a way that is justice oriented and not you know, just not seeing just more just violence, state sanctioned violence.
Yeah. Definitely think the protesters themselves have been a little like upset that coverage on them, the fact that every all the cameras in the country have turned towards them rather than what's actually happening in Gaza. But also they feel the need to speak up. So I guess that's something like we have control over our media diets, so we can also make sure to to keep the situation in Gaza.
I think they should just go home. They should just go home.
Yeah, you're actually making it like I can't even even like think right now from your protesting just leave me alone now. Amazing, Well, Trisha, thank you so much for coming back, and hopefully we can we can stay in touch and kind of keep talking to.
You as the situation develops.
But yeah, oh, and also you were going to mention like we're you know, for people who are interested in getting out object you understanding of what is happening, Like where should you where do we want to direct people to kind of begin their information gathering?
So I think social media is just so poisonous in terms of delivering news about all of this, so I'd be very wary of that. I found actually one of the best places to go is the student newspapers. So I know, like the Columbia Daily Spectator might not be in your normal media diet, but like the Columbia Newspaper is doing an amazing job. All of the other student newspapers across campuses are doing really really good jobs of reporting, and often they're the only ones with access inside campus.
So check out those. And then I just wanted to plug a Twitter account that some of my fellow journalism students are running. It's CJS Underscore fact Check, and what they're doing is basically looking at a lot of the news on social media that's being posted, and a lot of those things are like pictures from ages ago or just complete misrepresentations of what's happening. So if you want to see what's true and what's not, check out that Twitter and follow it and they'll be keeping as updated.
If you are going to go on social media, go to that one. Yeah, because at least that one isn't horrific and full of shit.
Yeah.
I get all my sports news from the Columbia Student Newspaper, so that's already consider me a follower already. That's where I get my big gambling tips.
We're sports team. So yeah, thanks, thanks so much, Jack, Thank you mos.
Yeah, yeah, definitely good seeing Nutricia again.
Yeah, my heart there.
Yeah, and other students, uh, and I hope you know you're just more power to all of you, because it's this is not an easy thing, and this is like one of the biggest societal issues in United States politics that we've just never had a reckoning with and we're seeing it play.
Out in this way and I think it's just massively important.
So yeah, yeah, all credit to to everybody being out there and being solidarity with the Palestinian people. The kids are all right, all right, those iPad kids, they're all right.
There are just all right. And by all right, we mean like C plus they're just they're they're all right. Millennials still rule. We're a plus amazing. All right.
I'm gonna do it for today, back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk to you all tomorrow.
Bye.
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