[ad_1]
“Oliver was arrested this morning. 13 students arrested,” Ella texted me at 8.27am, “No, 45”.
“Are you awake? shall we go I feel paralyzed right now.”
“Alex, Lily and I are leaving.”
*
“I just woke up. I can’t believe it. The Yale admin should be ashamed,” I replied to a message.
“Are you in Beinecke now?”
*
“Yes. There’s a lot of press here. Bring us masks. Instagram turns this into a disaster, but it’s peaceful. Liam and Oliver were arrested.
*
“Do you guys need anything? What can I bring?’
“Do you have your backpack?”
*
“We have everything, we are fine. I have no idea how long I will stay, it feels wrong to leave. I don’t have class until 1.”
*
“Okay, I’ll skip class. Are you inside or outside?’
*
“Outside. We are at the front of the circle.
New York Times headline reads 40+ Yale Students Arrested in Pro-Palestine Protest. The victims are familiar faces: an editor at our campus magazine, two soccer players on our club team, a friend who lives across the street.
Protests turn violent at Yale, my classmate headlines. The Yale Daily News published Yale is on the side of democracy – you should too, and that’s freedom of expression. Yale, don’t push it.
In an email, subject Campus Activity Update, Yale President Peter Salovey wrote: “Early this morning, Yale Police Department (YPD) officers spoke with students on Beinecke Plaza and gave them several options to leave and avoid arrest. YPD officers arrested only those who were willing to be arrested. During this action, Yale police arrested 60 people who refused a final request to leave voluntarily. Forty-seven were Yale students … I am grateful that we were able to take these actions peacefully and that none of the protesters resisted arrest.”
So today we sat, held hands, sang and sang together at Yale. We yelled at each other and at each other.
The police chief was interviewed by Fox News as he kept an eye on the crowd. Alex wrote “Jews for a Free Palestine” in blue chalk and I outlined the words in white. Today is Passover.
The restaurants served mutual aid. Claire’s Corner Copia, a local kosher diner, served French toast two ways: bananas and chocolate chips. Our night spot delivered twenty pizzas or more. Bottles of donated water piled between white columns.
We tore up the cardboard to make signs. “Books, not bombs,” I wrote in big black letters, with “books” in green and “bombs” in red. The remaining cardboard was transformed into “Jews for Ceasefire”, “Education is for Liberation” and “Free Palestine”.
Friends who attended last weekend’s formal have swapped long dresses for masks, sunglasses, hoods and other protective gear. Friends from freshman orientation groups led counter-protests with “Fact Check” signs and matching T-shirts. The Yale Gospel Choir performed, dance troupes offered workshops, and professors hosted lectures.
These professors are in full force: I go to a school that offers classes called “Challenging Injustice,” “Political Protest,” and “The Liberation Movement.” Yale is a member of the larger systems, machines, and institutions that perpetuate oppression, but teaches us to overthrow them.
I’m lying on the floor in my dorm room. I retreated to my corner of the campus. It’s 80 sq ft of popcorn walls and pine wood furniture. I turn on the fan, muffled white noise.
Echoes of “Free Gaza, Free Palestine, Within Our Lifetimes,” “I Will Learn No More War” and “We Are the Children” run together. I’m lying on the floor staring at the ceiling when the first tears burst.
I cry because during the protests at the Harvard-Yale football game in November, every university in Palestine was bombed. Until today’s April protest, not a single university remains in Palestine. I cry because with each passing hour, 42 bombs are released in Gaza. Yale won’t reveal how many of these bombs I funded with my tuition dollars.
Although I particularly support Occupy Beinecke on the Yale campus, I am not writing an article about the genocide in Palestine. Although this piece is more important and more pressing, it has already been written and will continue to be. I write about the energy, the division, the tension, and the gravity of Yale at this moment. I am writing about the ethical failure of a powerful western educational center.
It’s a curious situation. We scream, “Shame on Yale” at an institution we fought tooth and nail to visit. We shout “Shame on you” to the administrators who had a hand in the selection of each of us. We chose Yale and he chose us, but one party was betrayed.
When the first student was zip-tied by a police officer this morning, the safety net evaporated. A network that protects discourse, peaceful education and civil dissent. The arrests reveal something about the place we call home: The promise of Yale may be lost. Or maybe we’ve been walking alone all along.
I text Ella around 11:42pm to ask, “How are you?”
She returned from the Seder.
“I can’t stop staring at the wall,” she replies.
“It’s hard for me to come back to life.”
*
“It’s hard to figure out how we’re supposed to deal with the world.”
*
“It hurts. And it hurts how we’re breaking up.
It’s hard to figure out what to do.
*
“This is the first time I’ve really cried in a while.
I forgot how your eyes are sore and puffy.
*
“Do you want to come look at the wall with me?”
*
“What do you mean?”
*
“If you want, just sit down. Together.”
[ad_2]
