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| If they dare disobey, that's great. Riot on! (ES) |
ISLA VISTA, Santa Barbara, California - It used to be fun to watch MTV's version of
"Spring Break," but then one wakes up to the house party rather than the bikini-clad rap festival of our silly dreams. "It's The Man, it's The Man," you hear other colleges say, like UMass Amherst trying to worship Dionysus/St. Patrick. One never thinks the deadly projectiles, tear gas, and truncheons are going to rain down on people trying to enjoy the sunny coast. Mass arrests,
mass incarceration, and we're the lucky ones!
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Run! It's safer there with the sharks.
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Imagine if we were
partying while black. Imagine if we were
surfing beyond the breakers? "Quick, shoot him! He might hurt himself!" Imagine if we reached down to pull up our baggy slacks. Imagine if agents of the police state were actively looking for a pretext/excuse. It might not be so funny. Still, what are 100 students doing in jail and many more waiting to be rounded up because of all the
spy cams placed along the boardwalk and calls for citizen bystanders to turn in their neighbors with incriminating cellphone camera video. "Police overreacted," witnesses report. "They were looking for a riot to suppress. So they made one." [
Everything looks like a nail to a man with a hammer. Every youthful gathering looks like a potential "riot" to paramilitary soldiers with batons, teargas, rifles, handguns, and impunity.]
"Now it is 1984. Knock-knock at your front door. It's the [sweaty] denim secret police. They have come for your uncool niece. Come quietly to the camp. You'd look nice as a..." -
California Uber Alles.
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