We all got a laugh, chuckle, or at least a headshake from the video of the clueless young woman who had come down to NYU from Columbia. She knew people were protesting, and it had something to do with Palestine.
God knows we can use the laugh these days.
Similarly, there have been reports that many of the students at the big Columbia Camp-In are just there because it is cool to shout slogans, wave flags, and wear keffiyehs. You know, cuz it’s counter-cultural and cutting edge and stuff. Those kids are having a high time raising hell and making friendship bracelets while believing that a Columbia diploma and six-figure jobs are guaranteed. And that someone will pay their student loans.
But not everyone befouling the Ivy League schools is a poser or empty shirt. More than enough of them are crystal-clear about why they are there and what they want. They may be misinformed and immature but they are serious — deadly serious.
Submitted for your consideration:
Meet Khymani James, a student leader of Columbia University’s anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment who openly states that “Zionists don’t deserve to live”
He made the comments during a meeting with the school that he live-streamed.
We put together the highlights: pic.twitter.com/JFlxnRkNC2
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 25, 2024
That video was from James’ meeting with Columbia’s Center for Student Success and Intervention office. The Daily Wire reached out to the school for a comment. A spokesman said that James may face disciplinary measures adding, “While we do not comment on individual cases, when there are violations of student conduct policies, they are reviewed and disciplinary measures are applied.”
There isn’t much I can add to James’ statements. It is noteworthy that he is not screaming or overcome with emotion. There is a matter-of-fact tone to his comments that is chilling. And if you listen to the list of people who he feels could or should die, you may find that it is likely that he could decide that you fit one of those demographics.
He has been upfront with his views in the past, and the Daily Wire notes that in 2021, James called into a school board meeting to defend two members facing accusations of anti-white racism. During the call, he reportedly said, “I, too, hate white people.”
Lest you think that this will all blow over once summer break starts, the Washington Examiner is reporting today that pro-Palestinian organizers based at Columbia and Yale have been circulating a pamphlet across the nation. “First We Take Columbia: Lessons from the April 1968 Occupations Movement,” is a guidebook on how to overrun a community. It was published last Saturday in the magazine “Ill Will” and passed out to the occupiers at Columbia. It contains this quote from American poet Diane Di Prima’s Revolutionary Letter #15:
When you seize a town, a campus, get hold of the power stations, the water, the transportation, forget to negotiate, forget how to negotiate, don’t wait for De Gaulle or Kirk to abdicate, they won’t, you are not ‘demonstrating’ you are fighting a war, fight to win, don’t wait for Johnson or Humphrey or Rockefeller, to agree to your terms take what you need, ‘it’s free because it’s yours.
The college protesters may not understand or care about the ramifications of what they are doing. While it is tempting to call them uneducated entitled brats or some other epithet, one should bear in mind that the people mentoring them and spurring them on mean business.