Princeton professor and MSNBC contributor Eddie Glaude Jr. joined the Wednesday edition of Ana Cabrera Reports to discuss the chaos on college campuses. In Glaude’s upside down view of the world, it is not the anti-Semitic campers who are the problem, they just “want a better America,” but the “bad faith” Republicans condemning school administrations for tolerating it.
Cabrera wondered, “I am curious, though, as to how you see these protests, Eddie, through a broader lens. Some have compared these college campus demonstrations to protests during the Vietnam War. Do you think that's an accurate comparison?”
The correct answer would have been, “No, that's ridiculous. There is no draft directly affecting these students and groups leading this, like Students for Justice in Palestine, are not anti-war, they are pro-war, just pro-the other side that happens to be losing.”
That is not the answer Glaude gave, however. Instead, he went all in on the cult of youth:
Well, you want to reach for the familiar in order to understand the current moment, and I get that, but I want us to -- I want us to view these protests within the context of our current moment, the current geopolitical context and that is we're in a period where our politics are heightened, that the conflicts within the country where it feels as if we're at each other's throats, these young people have concluded, many of them that America in so many ways is broken and they've come of age in so many ways, not only in terms of how-- we might describe them, Ana, as the catastrophic generation.
He added, “They've come of age in the midst of school shootings, in the midst of economic collapse, in the midst of a pandemic, over a million folks are dead. So, these folks are arguing for a better America, a better world, and then they're witnessing the horror of Gaza. Even with the horror of October 7th, they're witnessing the horror of the consequences.”
As a young person, the author feels compelled to add that young people in America today have never had to fight a world war (or any war for that matter, those who have gone to war were part of an all-volunteer force), never protested anything remotely close to Jim Crow, and have been blessed with tremendous advancements in medical care and technology (the author is very grateful for phone-based GPS). They are obsessing over one and only one conflict. They are not condemning China’s actual genocide of the Uyghurs. Every generation, past, present, and future has its own foreign policy crises and times of economic turmoil.
Still, Glaude determined Republicans were the real problem, “let's be clear and just really quickly, Elise Stefanik, Republicans in the Congress are bad faith actors in this debate, and they're driving this and administrators should understand when they respond to them, these bad actors will eventually turn only them. We see this with the president of Columbia, they urged her to act in a certain way, she acted and they still called for her resignation. We need to understand our charge as educators and live that charge in relation to our students, not in the political climate of our current moment.”
It is Glaude who is acting in bad faith because she only acted after she let the situation get out of hand.
Here is a transcript for the May 1 show:
MSNBC Ana Cabrera Reports
5/1/2024
10:13 AM ET
ANA CABRERA: I am curious, though, as to how you see these protests, Eddie, through a broader lens. Some have compared these college campus demonstrations to protests during the Vietnam War. Do you think that's an accurate comparison?
EDDIE GLUADE JR.: Well, you want to reach for the familiar in order to understand the current moment, and I get that, but I want us to -- I want us to view these protests within the context of our current moment, the current geopolitical context and that is we're in a period where our politics are heightened, that the conflicts within the country where it feels as if we're at each other's throats, these young people have concluded, many of them that America in so many ways is broken and they've come of age in so many ways, not only in terms of how-- we might describe them, Ana, as the catastrophic generation.
They've come of age in the midst of school shootings, in the midst of economic collapse, in the midst of a pandemic, over a million folks are dead. So, these folks are arguing for a better America, a better world, and then they're witnessing the horror of Gaza.
Even with the horror of October 7th, they're witnessing the horror of the consequences and let's be clear and just really quickly, Elise Stefanik, Republicans in the Congress are bad faith actors in this debate, and they're driving this and administrators should understand when they respond to them, these bad actors will eventually turn only them. We see this with the president of Columbia, they urged her to act in a certain way, she acted and they still called for her resignation. We need to understand our charge as educators and live that charge in relation to our students, not in the political climate of our current moment.
