Reflection upon the action of police against students at UC Davis on November 18th, 2011

by: lindarella

Sat Nov 19, 2011 at 10:29:59 AM PST

UC Davis is my ‘alma mater’ or my intellectual mother, and so what happened yesterday felt deeply personal as I witnessed the violence by police against UC Davis students (see video here, and please watch the entire thing- the end is incredible: 

The video of students getting pepper sprayed by police while engaging in non-violent action was reprehensible, and in the words of the students:  “shame on you” to the persons who took part in this.  This goes for all the brutality and violence that people who peacefully participate in the Occupy movements around the country have endured. 

Why this violence against people?  Probably because this movement speaks to a truth that is inconvenient for those wealthy and in power, and demanding of further action and reflection.  The Occupy movement is about human dignity- people are taking action to reclaim our humanity in a historical time where non-human things like giant corporations dominate our collective consciousness.  This dominant paradigm oppresses and dehumanizes, and people are sick and tired of it.  “Dignity is resistance” as the healer from Chiapas told us (and thus the title of this blog), and we are witnessing that resistance.

I am reminded of the words of Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed:  “With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun… Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons- not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognized… it is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity.”  Make no mistake who the perpetrators of the violence are.   

There is hope in what happened yesterday on the campus at UC Davis, just watch the end of the video where the students drive the police from the quad peacefully and humanely, and say in unison “Please do not return”.  This speaks volumes to the beauty of this movement.  Again in the words of Paulo Freire: “Yet it is… in the response of the oppressed to the violence of their oppressors that a gesture of love may be found… Whereas the violence of the oppressors prevents the oppressed from being fully human, the response of the latter to this violence is grounded in the desire to pursue the right to be human.  As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors’ power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression.”  This last act by the students was a demonstration of the humanity of this movement; a truly peaceful act where the police got called out and shamed for their barbaric acts, and then were allowed to retreat.  I was so amazed by this group of students, so impressed, and so proud of them. 

This is true for what is happening around the country where people have been arrested, detained, beaten, dragged, sprayed with chemicals and otherwise endured violence by the powers that be.  People have come together to denounce this violence, and the struggle continues.  Thank you students and everyone participating in this movement for your courage, your resistance, and your humanity. This movement is democracy in action, and thus should be celebrated and protected.  In solidarity…