The juxtaposition of the Senate pageant with the mass criminalization of student protesters was not simply ironic. It reflects how public officials have repeatedly tried to drape themselves in the mis-history of the civil rights movement to oppose and justify the criminalization of protest in the present.
Media commentators and public officials have decried the Gaza solidarity encampments and other pro-Palestinian protests with comparisons to King and the civil rights movement. King, many liberals and conservatives claim, didn't inconvenience people, disrupt things, or make people feel unsafe; by contrast, today's students are portrayed as reckless and dangerous.
#student-protests #martin-luther-king-jr #civil-rights-movement #criminalization-of-protest #palestinian-solidarity
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