Woke Privilege

Competing stories from my morning news feed spawned today's title. First, Columbia University finally invited the New York Police Department to remove pro-Palestine protestors from its campus. Some got arrested for hitting or menacing cops. Second, pro-Palestine protestors who had blocked the Golden Gate Bridge for several hours before being arrested got released without charges, while prosecutors 'tried to build a case.' Color me skeptical.

America has an incarceration problem. We lock up more of our citizens than almost any other country in the world, and are far ahead of every other First World nation in that regard. A good chunk of this can be blamed on the disastrous War on Drugs and a decent chunk on cultural matters, but that's not all of it - our system rewards incarcerators and is stacked against the poor and minorities.

Incarceration is a self-propagating doom cycle. It reverberates far past the event itself, with a criminal record serving as a life "ceiling." Get arrested, and you'll have to, at the very minimum, explain that arrest for the rest of your life span. Get convicted of a misdemeanor, and you'll not only have to do more 'splainin, you're going to be locked out of many jobs and careers. Get convicted of a felony, and you're ****ed for life.

The stock answer is "don't do the crime if you can't do the time," and I will dive into the inequities and injustices of the system another day, but today's bit is about those who get a free pass on their misdeeds.

In times of yore, civil disobedience included getting arrested and prosecuted. The goal was to shine a spotlight on injustice, bad laws, and unequal treatment under the law by having the cops lock you up for sitting at the front of the bus, going into "whites only" spaces, and the like.

Many of today's protestors, on the other hand, are often shocked and dismayed when the cops take them away, crying rather than accepting with deliberate stoicism their arrests.

What happens to them when they get put in the system? Do they get the book thrown at them, as the January 6th rioters are getting? Or do they, as we just saw in San Francisco, get a slap on the wrist or less, and thereby avoid the lifetime scarlet letter of a criminal conviction? Will the guy who hit a cop at Columbia get a felony conviction that'll haunt him for the rest of his life, or will the wokeness of his motivation inspire Manhattan's prosecutors to quietly let him skate?

Acts of protest that involve personal risk are much more compelling than silly play-game stunts like the recent twelve hour "hunger strike" at Harvard. Pro-Paletine protestors, who are either idiots or Jew-haters in my book, very likely fear little to no fallout from their protests, a conclusion supported by their hysterics when challenged or removed.

Among those arrested was Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's (D-MN) daughter, Isra Hirsi. Omar, a virulent hater of Israel and someone who's offered up enough vitriol for me to conclude a thick streak of antisemitism, said she's "enormously proud" of her daughter, who apparently has a long history of protesting.

That's fine, but I do wonder if Hirsi has incurred any penalty from that history. Were she on the "wrong" side of some issues, or were she not the daughter of a politician, the risk of protest would likely be far greater.

Meanwhile, a co-protestor, Maryam Iqbal, was apparently off-put by being suspended from Barnard and evicted from her dorm in the wake of her arrest.

The Birmingham Campaigners,

Salt Marchers,

and Stonewall protestors

could not be reached for comment.

Since I'm not keen on cancel culture or on "the system" unfairly destroying lives, I'm not in favor of those protesting real injustices suffering permanent penalties. But, when People of Privilege step into the protest world, I'm disinclined to pay them much heed if they expect to be treated with kid gloves despite their disrupting other people's lives.

Indeed, I think that traffic-blockers and other disruptors should be prosecuted. Ditto for those throwing paint or soup at art in museums. If their cause is just, their prosecutions will be judged unjust by the court of public opinion.

Martyrdom is powerful.

Thing is, they don't want to be martyrs. They want to disrupt others' lives without penalty.

This echoes the broader practice of virtue signaling, the "no cost or effort to me" stand-in for activism and issue advocacy.

It also echoes the "caring by proxy" nature of present-day society, where people feel they've done their part by supporting politicians who use Other People's Money to address the problems (real, perceived, and fabricated) they care about.

It's really easy to protest about something when doing so comes with no cost or peril. This is why we end up with a slew of bandwagon-joiners whenever the latest outrage emerges. It's harder to take a side when doing so comes with risk.

But, the risk is what draws the attention.

A leftist speaker on a leftist college campus?

Yawn.

Pro-Palestine protesters on that same campus?

Double-yawn.

Especially when we know that they expect - nay, demand - no resistance and no punishment.

Add to that illogic and factlessness, and the yawns become mockery.

Accusations of "genocide" by Israel? LGBT and feminists protesting in favor of Islamists?

Stupid is as stupid does.

Protests can be incredibly effective at prompting political change. Their effectiveness relies on a few things: the justness of the cause, the form of the protest, the risks taken by the protestors, and the injustice of the State’s response to the protests.

The sorts of protests we are seeing from coddled college kids and other privileged wokesters fit none of the above.