Saw this today.
Given, I don’t know the context beyond what the article offers, but I doubt there’s a way this was okay. It feels like some sort of sleazy attack on a student paired with a Minority Report fetish.
But it’s a chance, again, for us to survey the damage. I happened upon a conversation on a discussion board– my favorite Pizza humping group on Facebook– about the incident at Notre Dame with VP Pence and the students who walked out. I’m not going to attribute or direct quote because it’s a (very loosely) private group, but the basic premise of what the person was saying is that the students who walked away were disrespectful and defied even their parents.
This is what Trump America is doing to our sense of rights and patriotism. A person of authority (a teacher) making a “funny joke that might hurt some people” is allowed, unchecked, to call a student a future terrorist. If *I* did this in my classroom (and I have a student who would absolutely SAVOR it if I were to add the word “domestic” to the start– someone who aspires to be like Elliot from Mr. Robot) I would be summary fired.
At the same time, the people who post to this group I’m in– middle-to-lower-class white people in Indiana– feel like it’s okay to post a personal throw-down on a server for being slow on a busy Friday night but somehow it’s wrong for college students, at THEIR graduation meant to celebrate THEIR achievements to make a choice to exercise THEIR right to protest. And if it was one person, I’d say “yeah, we have idiots in this world,” but it was over 100 people vs. maybe 3 or 4 who were supportive of the students.
It bothers me because people don’t seem to understand the landscape of America anymore. This country, for those who don’t remember, was colonized by people who left Britain because they couldn’t be the hardcore Protestants they wanted to be, then when they were taxed without representation (sort of like the people who are being screwed by this government), they dressed up like Natives and turned the Boston Harbor into a huge cup of shitty tea. After winning that war and being oppressive all over the place, half of this country fought the other half. The poster boy for this generation of politicians is most famous for demanding that the USSR “tear down this wall.”
It’s utterly American to protest when you don’t appreciate something. And if the supporters of Mike Pence can’t handle people walking out of THEIR OWN GRADUATION, maybe he should consider the things he’s said and done. People with Pence signs once surrounded me as part of an abortion protest; I just wanted to walk across the street from the courthouse. People in Ohio once mobbed my car for the same reason. I wasn’t even being pro choice. I was being not part of their horde. One time I was getting lunch before an afternoon session at a conference. The other time I was trying to buy a muzzle for my dog.
Had I been at the Notre Dame graduation, I’d have probably been part of the platform party, because I was fly like that with the GPA and the student awards. If I were, I would have taken the podium and gone off-script. I wouldn’t have walked out, but I’d have most definitely been disrespectful.
FWIW, when I was younger and Pence was our lowly rep, I went to a town hall meeting. At 16, I managed to out-debate him. I don’t say that to be overly proud of myself. I say that because the man we’re debating the merits of became flummoxed when a 16 year old asked him to explain his positions. He disrespected me in that moment. In fact… he walked out on the town hall.