Protesters at Claremont McKenna College partially shut down a talk by Heather Mac Donald, author of the book The War on Cops Thursday evening. Mac Donald was forced to speak to a nearly empty auditorium and then had her talk, which was being live-streamed, cut short by police who were concerned the crowd outside was getting rowdy. The College Fix reports:
“The protesters surrounded all the doors to the Atheneum where I was supposed to speak, so none of the students who had signed up to attend my lecture could get in,” Mac Donald (pictured) told The Fix. “I was hustled from my guest suite by several police officers from Claremont PD into the lecture hall. It was decided that I would give the speech for live streaming to a largely empty hall. The organizers moved the podium so that it would not be visible through the windows to the students surrounding the building once night fell. We jumpstarted the timing of my talk as the crowd seemed to be getting more unruly.”…
“During my speech, the protesters banged on the glass windows and shouted. It was extremely noisy inside the hall. I took two questions from students who were watching on livestream, but then the cops decided that things were getting too chaotic and I should stop speaking,” Mac Donald said. “An escape plan through the kitchen into an unmarked police van was devised; I was surrounded by about four cops. Protesters were sitting on the stoop outside the door through which I exited, but we had taken them by surprise and we got through them.”
The two hundred or so protesters spent their time chanting various slogans including “Black Lives Matter,” “Shut it down!” and “From Oakland to Greece, f**k the police.” Incidentally, for anyone wondering why the Pepsi commercial featuring Kendall Jenner went over like a lead balloon this week, it’s partly because the ad ended with Jenner giving a Pepsi to a police officer. You can imagine how well that minimal sign of mutual respect would go over with the people who, in real life, are chanting “F**k the police!” Here’s video of the protest. (The College Fix has more video of the protest here.)
This semi-successful attempt to silence Mac Donald was organized on a Facebook page titled, “Shut Down Anti-Black Fascist Heather Mac Donald.” The Claremont Independent has more:
“Heather Mac Donald has been vocally against the Black Lives Matter movement and pro-police, both of which show her fascist ideologies and blatant anti-Blackness and white supremacy,” the Facebook page adds. “Let’s show CMC that having this speaker is an attack on marginalized communities both on campus and off. Together, we can hold CMC accountable and prevent Mac Donald from spewing her racist, anti-Black, capitalist, imperialist, fascist agenda.”
The page also included a photo of Mac Donald with devil horns. So in addition to all the usual leftist tropes—those who disagree are racist, speech is “an attack”—the page used literal demonization to rally people.
There was a similar protest a day earlier when Mac Donald spoke at UCLA. However, protesters at UCLA actually were quiet for most of Mac Donald’s actual talk, though they shouted frequently throughout the Q&A that followed. From UCLA, here’s the speech protesters at Claremont McKenna didn’t want people to hear:
Heather Mac Donald, "Blue Lives Matter – Cops: The Real Victims" LIVE
Posted by Bruin Republicans at UCLA on Wednesday, April 5, 2017
