Milo Yiannopoulos was supposed to speak at a Berkeley College Republicans event today as part of his campus tour. Violent protests shut him down.
I was there, wearing heels and holding a sign that read, "NOT AT MY ALMA MATER".
Here is what happened. Peaceful protestors--primarily students--started showing up around 4 PM. Around 5, a group of 150 or so non-students with their faces masked showed up and commandeered the protest. They lit fires; they set off fireworks; they exploded Molotov cocktails; they smashed windows. By the time I arrived, shortly after 6, an enormous fire was growing on Upper Sproul Plaza. The kindling appeared to be some kind of electrical system doused in fuel. Thick, black smoke rose from the flames that burned branches of the sycamore tree above. Four or five officers in riot gear watched from the upper level of the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union building. I saw one of them filming the protests on his phone. Twenty or so more officers and SWAT members waited in the lobby of MLK in case they were needed. Shortly after my arrival, the campus cancelled the event due to the danger posed by the protests. Milo was evacuated from UC Berkeley two hours before the event began. The police announced this to a cheering crowd; then he ordered the crowd to disperse from Sproul because the chief deemed the assembly "unlawful". With the threat of police action such as arrests, tear gas, and rubber bullets, the protestors, led by the masked group, took to occupying the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph. They carried a sign that read, "BECOME UNGOVERNABLE". I witnessed some violence break out in the street. I saw one of the masked people beat two others in the crowd with the thick, wooden flagpole he carried. One of the victims skidded on the street to the bus stop; when he sat up, I could see a deep gash on the top of his head with a line of blood down his face. The second skidded on the street and remained face-down. Someone sprayed pepper spray at someone else. Upon first glance, I thought these were police officers; alas, it was protestor-on-protestor violence. Maybe the victims were Neo-Nazis. That was the point when I knew I had to leave.
Part of me thinks that I should be disappointed with how the protests turned out because they were not non-violent. But at the same time, perhaps this type of violent display showed that the ideologies legitimized by Milo and trump need to be burned. Perhaps Milo's repulsive dogma merited such a violent response. I was reminded of the Boston Tea Party; wasn't tonight in the exact same vein as that?
I know that Milo will capitalize on this instance to reinforce his point that free speech is under attack. Maybe this is what he wanted to happen all along. So maybe he won. But then again, he didn't end up giving his talk, which is what we wanted. So maybe we won. Maybe we both won. The inevitable result of both sides winning, though, is greater divergence between the two ideologies.
"Free speech is under attack," conservatives will say in response to this event. I'm not sure that it is. Words always have come with consequences since language has been invented. Milo's words have come with these consequences. How the protestors handled their anti-Milo position was their freedom of expression--and with these actions come consequences. Free speech is a protection from the government, that the government will not prosecute (most) speech. The governing institution, UC Berkeley, abode by this rule by allowing the event to happen. How private citizens responded tonight is a different story. How private citizens respond is never the responsibility of the government to maintain unless violence is involved.
This protest--in addition to the anti-trump ones on inauguration day--gave me the feeling that everything is somehow connected. This protest wasn't just about Milo; I saw signs and heard chants about trump, immigrants, the LBGTQ+ community, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism, Black Lives Matter, police violence, public university ownership, and probably more.
BCR could have invited a whole host of others to speak--they
had to choose Milo of all people. That felt like a slap in the face.
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