Your Protest is Not Convenient

On Saturday, November 23rd, students from both Harvard and Yale took a stand.

During halftime of the football game being played between these two schools, a protest was put on urging both schools to divest from fossil fuels. Other issues regarding climate change and Puerto Rico were also a part of this protest.

But we're not here to talk about the things they were protesting. Yet the immediate response from both schools and the Ivy League itself regarding the protest itself.

The game was delayed for a little over and hour, and about 20-30 protesters were arrested for trespassing. In any sporting event, it is illegal to go onto the field without permission. So the arrests were warranted given the circumstances.

The response however, was in their own words "Regrettable." Which is what the Ivy League deemed the protest.

The game was still going on and Yale officials made a comment saying that they "Stand firmly for the right to free expression." Sounds good right? But then they followed it up with "The exercise of free expression on campus is subject to general conditions, and we do not allow disruption of university events."

I'm sorry, what? A football game is being considered more important than world issues that could possibly have a lasting effect on the Earth itself.

Yale had the announcer state to the protesters "As a courtesy to both teams, the game must resume." The game?! These people are taking a stand for something real. Something that could affect our children.

It seems befuddling to me that two schools such as Harvard and Yale would stand against something like this. People speaking passionately about something they believe in. Their own students.

It almost makes you wonder what the schools themselves think a protest is. A protest is not supposed to be convenient. Protesters are not supposed to give you a time and place of their protest.

The whole point is to be an inconvenience in order to get the point across. This protest and the response just proved the protesters' point. These higher ups will do whatever it takes to shift the conversation to something else.

Instead of responding to what was being protested, they turned the protesters into the bad guys.

It's everything that is wrong with this country and the state of our government itself. Everyone has an opinion on Hong Kong fighting for freedom against China, when we don't even have freedom ourselves.

People tend to think that other countries should follow our fight against oppression, when we're the ones still being oppressed. We're talking about Hong Kong and their fight against privacy and the right to more information, but do you think you really have those things here in this country?

You have a lot more than most countries, yes. But moments like this make you realize that they're still against us. They don't want us to rise up because they fear what could happen.

Their dreams of an economic heaven on Earth would be shattered if we fought together for Earth itself. Their longing for more power would be killed.

So they continue to turn the story on us as the bad guys. The people fighting for something are the ones who are killing this country, and they project that message through media outlets. They make us fight each other instead of them.

Democrat, Republican, Green Party, it doesn't fucking matter. They just group all of us up to divide us.

And until people realize that, we're all going to be fighting for the wrong reasons.

I commend those students who took a stand today, and I thank them for displaying what truly means to be American.