Columbia Protester MOCKED For Food And Water Demands; ‘Humanitarian Aid’—Watch

in what is being derided on the internet from many sides a protester at Columbia University was pleading for humanitarian Aid except it was for her protesters not those starving in Gaza let's watch why should the university be obligated to provide food to people who've taken over a building uh well F first of all we're saying that they're obligated to provide food to students who pay for a meal plan here but you mentioned that there was a request that food and water be brought in unless I misunderstood to allow it to be brought in I mean well I guess it's ultimately a question of what kind of community and obligation Columbia feels it has to its students um do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree with you if the answer is no then you should allow basic I mean it's crazy to say because we're on an IV Le campus but this is like basic humanitarian Aid we're asking for like could people please have a glass of water but they they did put themselves in that very deliberately in that situation and in that position so it it seems like you're sort of saying we want to be revolutionaries we want to take up this building now would you please bring us food and water nobody's asking them to bring anything every we're we're asking them to not violently stop us from bringing in basic humanitarian Aid they're stopping the delivery of food I we are looking for a commitment from them that they will not stop it by they haven't stopped it yet we well I don't I'm not I don't know to what extent it has been attempted but we're looking for a commitment the Twitter verse or the X verse took notice starting with Elon Musk himself so great that the Biden Administration is forgiving her student loans yay he said then did actually remove that tweet afterwards there was also this from Professor David Bernstein from The River To The Sea please send KFC um L they can get food and water Anytime by leaving the building they are illegally occupying so there is quite a bit of snark going on and I actually just saw basically everyone making fun of this person very little defense of um what she was saying wait I'm sorry so you think that Colombia students should who pay for meal plan should have the meal plan cut off um I I don't think they're under any obligation to feed them while they are wait a minute I thought your whole point was contract rights contract rights the people who pay like $200,000 a year in tuition including a meal plan should have their for hand delivered to them while they're occupying the administrative building while you were busy making fun of her did you bother listening to the words that were coming out of her mouth because she specifically said she is not asking for food to be brought into her she wants a commitment that they are not going to block the students from bringing food to themselves which by the way Colombia has been doing so not that is the question should Colombia basically tried to starve the students out and she's completely right she was so poised and so articulate she okay goad go ahead go ahead continue she in an incredibly poison articulate manner explained that this is a matter of what how the community wants to look does Columbia want to look like a university that cares more about starving students out who are protesting a genocide that's being paid for with their own tuition dollars or do they at the very least want to reinstitute the meal plan so that the student Community isn't collectively punished very Israeli of them collectively punished out of submitting to their political will or do at the very least want to allow the the uh the student protesters to get their own food and bring it into the people who are occupying the building and other people on campus which has been blocked there was another viral a beautiful viral video of outside kids passing food through the bars in the university the gate that has been closed and they as they were being denied access to feed their community members inside they're not wanting for food and they're able to take care of themselves what they want to know is that whether or not the university is going to try to punish them by starving them again much like Israel did for months and is continued to do with the people of Palestine in order to win a political fight I guess it speaks to how divided this country is how divided we are I think a lot of Americans are going to see this as more Rich entitlement from Elite college campus students who want to face no opposition to taking over a public building face no OPP demand food and then they're going to all get expelled and then we're going to to pay stud loans afterward American people pay you said that they're demanding being brought food they literally are not you said it's the meal plan you said it they're entitled to the food isn't that what saying they paid for the food they paid for a meal plan do they pay to have it delivered they're not asking for it to be delivered so why do you keep saying why you saying they' paid for the me meal plan what does that have to do with anything they can go to the cafeteria and get their food then they can't that's what they're saying right because of their actions not because of the University because they're occupying a building illegally no the university decided to shut down the cafeteria just like the decided to go to it decided shut down theia because of the protest they did as a Strate as a strategy they impeded the student ability to come first of all that was F okay so there's a couple of things here one of the one of the things that was being reported which we were corrected by by a guest earlier this week was that they had shut down classes right they had shut down classes now everything has to be remote that's not true they gave people the option of going remote but that narrative has been used to say oh the kids are making it worse for all the Columbia other Columbia students now the university has chosen to end the meal plan so again it can use this narrative that says oh it the these protests are making it so that we can't provide all these other services when it's a university choice and you are buying right into it sighting with the corporation against the students and faculty who overwhelmingly simply want this to end by the University of divesting from using uh educational funds to invest in weapons manufacturing that is being used to kill tens of thousands of people in Gaza that's what this is all about so if you think that the young woman who's standing there making a moral case that the university should not punish students for trying to have control over where their money goes and whether it funds a genocide by starving them out of the one that lookss why do you keep saying that too you know very well that student loan debts aren't getting cancelled actually Biden just announced today a this is great time fantastic timing from the administration Administration is approving 6.1 billion in student debt cancellation for 317,000 borrowers who the Art Institute oh so not her so you're lying again so not her so not a Columbia student okay for even in the best case scenario as people who actually listened and followed this debate and had a sincere investment and wondering what was happening would know even under the best case scenario of Biden's own original program only people who earned less than $120,000 $25,000 a year got student loan debt canceled and even then it was only $10,000 unless you were Health Grant recipient some of the poor students in the country who then got $20,000 or their loan uh loans canceled this woman is indeed an elite and a rich person and all of those kinds of things then she would not have been eligible for the program Point Blank period so the question is why do you keep deflecting and not want to talk about the question of whether or not a university should be in a position where it's trying to starve its kids out instead of coming to the table and actually talking to them about their fight to divest from a state that's committing a genocide halfway across the world with their money I think I've said how I feel about them and people can make their own determination but while some universities have had Riot officers arresting Pro palestin Pro Palestinian protesters last night others were able to avert the violence largely thanks to Deals negotiated with the protesters for example Northwestern administrators announced a deal late Monday that would curb protest activity in return for new advisory committee on University Investments an agreement to support visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk providing funding for two faculty members for two years and the full cost of attendance for five Palestinian undergraduates there was also Brown University's corporate board agreement to vote on a proposal to divest from Israeli interests in exchange for the students ceasing demonstrations the Agreements are drawing criticism from both sides some Pro Palestine protesters condemn the agreement as a failure to stay strong on their original demands one frequent collaborator with Northwestern student for justice in Palestine Kayla uchoa wrote on Instagram please don't inflate your winds just be honest be transparent admit when you don't have the strategy and willpower to hold down and take risks on the other side conservative influenc Marina medvin tweeted in response to the news quote it's important to reward the worst of behavior to make sure you get more and more of it great ad for Northwestern Bill Amman the billionaire and CEO of persing square wrote quote incentives drive all human behavior when you reward protesters who violate University's codes of conduct and the law you will get more protests and more bad behavior in the future yeah so I think this is a case in point I think Wesleyan is the best example of a college that's really come to the table Brown I think there is a real concern here that because the vote is punted down I think into the fall that it could be a ruse to Simply push past this moment and deflate the movement energy that's happening right now um to offer something that's not going to manifest for quite some time but I think it really is a testament to how universities can make different kinds of choices and whereas some universities have simply said yeah let's come to the table and talk about divestment colum university has chosen to try to starve its students out and to call the full force of the New York police force to um assault them uh as we saw in really gripping footage from last night and some people are going to think that it's the protesters that look bad when they are advocating for not being starved and some people are going to think that it's the university that has egg on its face and potentially blood on its hands well some of us think the university looks bad and the protesters look bad and the police response is worrisome and the effort to crack down on dissent that will happen at the administrative level and the legal level is the biggest thing to be wary of but that's not going to stop me from making fun of some of the protesters so more Rising right after this [Music]

Channel: The Hill

Views: 51,760

Keywords: Rising, Progressive, Progressive Politics, Democrats, Democratic Party, Republicans, GOP, Republican Party, Columbia, Palestine, Israel, Campus Protests, NYPD, New York, Gaza, Humanitarian Aid

Id: D_TrzOfKqFE

Length: 10min 18sec (618 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024