I recall that when I was in college back in the 80's organizing an anti-CIA recruitment blockade at the career planning and placement center of Fordham University, one thing we were very conscious of was this kind of stereotyping of student activism (like every stereotype there was a grain or two of truth that we were not afraid to acknowledge of course). When we did a sit in at the office, we were quite prepared for the likelihood that we would disrupt the workday routine of the office secretarial and clerical staff and that they might even see this protest as directed against them, the implication quite clear, priviliged Westchester elite kids (me aside, actually almost all of us aside, but perception is what matters here) showing no consideration for local 9-5'ers'situation...
Our solution was to prepare a bouquet of flowers to give to the head of the secretarial staff and a letter for every clerical staff, stating that we apologize for the inconvenience caused by the protest, that it is not directed at the clerical staff, and that we would make certain that the office was left in the same clean condition that it was in when we began our sit-in. Suffice it to say that sincere gesture did not win support for the protest, but it did diffuse the potential for unecessary divisions to be created and later exploited by the campus right.
At protests on campus here in UH that I have been involved in, similar efforts have been made with campus security, since they are usually pitted against the protestors in ways that the media could take advantage of but for preemptive strategies that minimize that situation.
This would-be libertarian actually underestimates how much savvier student protestors become when they confront efforts to slander their sincerity. Not to say that there are not student protestors who don't very opportunistically try to lead protests and the like to further their own name recognition etc, but they also tend to not last long, since such motivations are not the stuff of serious mass based organizing or organizing that wins over mass support.
Steve
Steve
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