The university’s response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used against students, faculty and community members – at one of the few student protests in the south to date.
Gen-X here. I am very curious to find out what percentage of Boomers that were very much so in favor of the university campus protests against the Vietnam war are now calling these Zoomers terrorists and justifying the use of force by the police.
Perception of the vietnam war protests at the time were also very split, and I would be very unsurprised to find that the people most against the student protests now are, or are the children of people who were very against the social movements of the 60s. The 60s were also an incredibly divided time in the US politically. Nixon won the whitehouse in 1968, and the civil rights movement had met extremely bitter opposition.
Nixon and the anti-civil-rights crowd were very, very wrong.