Fifty-five years ago, in the Spring of 1968, while a Junior at Clark University, a small, liberal arts college west of Boston, I woke up one morning in my apartment to hear the news that a massive group of students had taken over the college’s administration building.
They were copying what had been done at Columbia University, at the University of California, Berkeley, and so many other campuses across America and the world: leftwing idealists, who felt that only by provocative, even illegal, action could they effect changes to society, had seized control of campuses. These students were a collection of smaller units that had not previously cooperated--Black, womens’ and gay liberationists. United conveniently with the unpredictable but volatile anti-Vietnam movement, together they seemed to herald a new, much more powerful day of social activism and revolution.
I wasn’t so sure. While I certainly agreed with the Black, womens’ and gay liberationists, and was against the Vietnam War, it didn’t seem to me that taking over campuses was the correct way to advance these causes. There was something about the “us versus them” mentality I disliked.
So, with my best friend Michael, I hightailed it downtown to a theatrical supply store, where we bought two tubes of face paint, one black, one white, and painted our faces in each color, right down the middle. Then we went to the Student Union, where hundreds of students were having a shutdown showdown with campus administrators.
The Student Union building was a large, modern, three-storied structure, with the cafeteria on the ground floor. It was open on the upper stories, except for a balcony that ran along the perimeter. Michael and I found a spot on the third floor, from which we could see the confrontation 30 feet below, growing more tense by the minute, as Clark’s president begged the protesters to disperse so that he wouldn’t have to call the police. Nobody had noticed Michael or me until I spoke at the top of my voice.
Suddenly, five hundred faces with upturned eyes were staring at me. Sure of my message, I said, “Confrontation will never work. We’re all on the same side. The administration isn’t your enemy. The war isn’t their fault. Instead of yelling and screaming at them, let’s all work together, so we can find unity and common purpose.”
Well, that didn’t go over so well; the students were heady with their own boldness and power, and in no need of being lectured. So Michael and I decided to get out of there. We’d tried, and failed, to get our message across.
I haven’t changed my views much since that day. I still loathe disunity and confrontation. I still hate this “us versus them” mentality that so divides us. Extremism is the enemy of public safety and progress. While I’ve made clear my critical views on the extremism of wokeness (itself the lineal descendent of the “New Left” that occupied all those campuses so long ago), I harbor just as great a resentment toward the “New Right” conservatives, which since Trump has morphed into a MAGA cult determined to establish a religious, homophobic dictatorship in America. I hate both sides, left and right. Both try to stir up rancor among the people—rancor that can only lead to street fighting.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the plight of so many Black Americans. But that sympathy doesn’t go so far as to excuse the dysfunctional behavior that gets so many Black people in trouble in the first place. The blame, as usual, is equally shared, in this case by an American system that was indeed founded on racism, and by too many Black people, who feel that breaking the law is their entitlement due to “400 years of racism and Jim Crow.” No, it isn’t. No matter how badly you feel you’ve been treated, you don’t have the right to be predators. We, the victims of crime on the other hand, do have the right to insist you conform to societal norms, and if you don’t, then you have to expect there to be consequences. This is why we so strongly object to Pamela Price. She is trying to make Black criminality as inconsequential as it can be, or as she dares. That is the extremism I fight against. At the same time—and I know this will infuriate some of my colleagues--I still believe—considering the alternative—in the Democratic Party, which can, with hard work here on the ground, be rescued from its inept and (let us hope) temporary obsession with wokeness.
Look: Both extremist sides lead to disaster. On the right, it leads to Donald Trump. On the left, it leads to Carroll Fife and Cat Brooks. All are dangerous ideologues, and you can rest assured that none of them has your welfare at heart.
Have a great weekend! Back on Monday.
Steve Heimoff