Black Lives Matter protesters tore down a tribute to fallen police officers at Dartmouth College on Friday.
According to The Dartmouth Review, the College Republicans had decorated a bulletin board in the Collis Students Center to celebrate and honor National Police Week. The display had information about police officers killed in the line of duty and included the words “Blue Lives Matter.” This was too much for Black Lives Matter activists who said the use of the term Blue Lives Matter (along with All Lives Matter) “facilitates the erasure of black lives.”
The activists were livid and tore down the display – on the very day two New Hampshire police officers were shot. BLM then put up their own posters that said, “You cannot co-opt the movement against state violence to memorialize its perpetrators. #blacklivesmatter.” The activists stood around the bulletin board, guarding their vandalism from any attempts to put the police tribute back up. They also distributed pictures of Dartmouth students with Donald Trump. After these intimidation tactics, college administrators wanted to avoid a confrontation, so the BLM flyers were only taken down overnight by maintenance workers.
The activists sent out a nonsensical email blasting the police tribute and blaming conservative rhetoric and complacency for “intensifying the violence against people of color.” The screed said, in part:
People are tired. People of color are tired of being made inferior to their peers. We are tired of conservative rhetoric reproducing the same racial stereotypes that have positioned our bodies in a violent, inhumane fashion since slavery.
We have reclaimed the board. We are reclaiming our space, in Collis, in Class, and on this Campus. We have proclaimed “Black Lives Matter” — we do in fact matter, and we are here.
Fuck your comfort, there is no such thing as neutral existence. Sitting in the library with your headphones in, intensifies this violence against people of color, muting the voices of the movement, the cries of your peers, and the history of inequality. Posting Blue Lives Matter reproduces the idea that All lives matter, again intensifying the violence against people of color. Invalidating individual realities.
We occupy this space, in front of the bulletin board, to guarantee our presence at this institution. Reposting Blue Lives Matter reproduces this violent narrative against people of color, by silencing us. We will not be silenced.
We have cried, but we will persevere regardless of the complacent conservative faction on campus, we will be okay. …
And on and one it goes, ranting about how the campus is “toxic” and “a site of violence” and calling on more students to stand in solidarity with them. Yeah, who wouldn’t want to stand with these police-hating wackos?
Although the administration was slow to respond, an email was sent out two days later to the student body about the incident. The message affirmed, “Freedom of expression is a fundamental value of the Dartmouth community. By its very nature, the exercise of free speech will include views with which some of us disagree or which we find hurtful.” Sorry to the BLM folks who think speech is violence. The administration also said the vandalism “was an unacceptable violation of freedom of expression on our campus” and that any students involved be subjected to their disciplinary process.
This comes after Black Lives Matter swarmed the Dartmouth library to scream and harass white students last November. They got in the faces of bewildered students studying for finals and shouted, among other racist slurs, “F*** you, you filthy white f***s!” “F*** you and your comfort!” “F*** you, you racist s***!”
Their shameful, bullying behavior has become all too common on America’s college campuses. Somebody needs to get these privileged ivy league kids to shut up and study already. Yeesh!
On Monday, 13 police officers received the Medal of Valor.
