At UNC, student protesters crash Tom Tancredo's party

YoungMoney · 04-15-2009, 02:20 PM

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Con...d=oid%3A388869

Quote:

The scheduled talk by former Republican Congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Tuesday night was cut very short by raucous, angry student protesters.

It gets worse...

Quote:

The night's only moment of calm followed. Tancredo offered to listen to students' protests, if they would listen to him, and then began to discuss his views on higher education and illegal immigrants. Tancredo said he had been invited to speak in opposition to the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, proposed federal legislation that would allow the children of illegal immigrants to gain citizenship through college education or military service.

A student group Youth for Western Civilization (YWC) invited Tancredo to speak at UNC-CH. Riley Matheson, the senior who started the Chapel Hill chapter of YWC, attempted to introduce Tancredo, but was largely drowned out by the crowd.

"You believe in white people's superiority, you fuck!" one student shouted, to cheers.

Tancredo ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 on an admittedly single-issue platform: Stopping illegal immigration. While in Congress, Tancredo—the grandson of Italian immigrants—introduced the Mass Immigration Reduction Act, which would have placed a moratorium on all immigration, legal or otherwise, into the U.S., except for family members of current citizens.

This is not good...

Quote:

The protest worked in disrupting his speech. Seconds after Tancredo started discussing his opposition to the DREAM Act, a classroom window shattered, broken by a rock-throwing protester outside.

"That's it," he said, walking briskly into the hallway with Matheson, through the the acrid scent of pepper spray that still hung in the air, and out Bingham Hall's back door. A student, carrying a cardboard sign that read "NO HATE SPEECH AT UNC," bolted after Tancredo and Matheson, screaming profanity and insults.

The protesters stayed long after Tancredo's departure, giving speeches through a bullhorn, chanting and berating campus police for using force on them. One student complained, to cacophonous cheers, that safety officers were protecting "racists," while those that really needed protection—the students—were being zapped and sprayed.

I agree with what these protesters did, but i disagree with how they went about doing it. We should be better than this. This really hurts our cause.

angeleno · 04-15-2009, 02:33 PM

The protesters should have mailed tea bags instead. That would've shown him.

deftbeta · 04-15-2009, 02:38 PM

These guys have been listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine.....

tiffany · 04-15-2009, 03:14 PM

You know, I've been following the Dream Act (undercover mind you) since 2001, and I'm actually glad this happened in a way. Not the bad press it elicited, but because it seems like there is a bigger public outcry for it nowadays. Kinda gives me hope that there are people doing their part, too.

myloveisaverb · 04-15-2009, 03:27 PM

Honestly, the "brick" through the window could have been anyone. We don't even know if it was thrown by one of the alipacers trying to frame the protesters. William Gheen is skilled at using rhetoric to turn what was really a group of concerned students protesting to stop the spread of hate on their campus into a group of tyrants and radicals obstructing the right to free speech. In no way is the “brick” through the window during Tom Tancredo’s speech analogous to the “hate, intolerance, and savagery responsible for bricks through the windows of black churches and Jewish storefronts” as he says. Tom Tancredo is being opposed not because of his skin color or religious belief, but because his ideas and political views are founded on hate and intolerance for others. If you look back at history, it always begins with the spread of the idea, and once that’s sufficiently ingrained, people will then begin to act. Imagine if there were protesters at all of Hitler’s speeches and meetings. Nazi propaganda would not have spread as easily and as quickly as it did. I believe in free speech, but I don’t believe in the spread of hate. For the most part, the video clearly shows that that is what the protesters were doing. William Gheen is desperate and looking to use ANYTHING to bring down the Dream Act cause.

Bacoazul · 04-15-2009, 03:53 PM

I don't condone violence or shattering windows but I think it's a good thing as the Dream Act raises media attention for the better or worse.

We have to send a message some how.

Tancredo is on a anti-Dream Act rampage spreading false information. He has nothing better to do, or any other issue to take care of.

angeleno · 04-15-2009, 04:06 PM

Speaking of throwing things, they just threw tea bags at the White House, causing security to evacuate the whole north lawn.

dado123 · 04-15-2009, 04:06 PM

That is what he gets, for preaching his xenophobic views, this guy seriously thinks he is god's gift to humanity!

meehx3 · 05:15 PM

actions like this just makes us look bad.
this kind of publicity is publicity we shouldn't get....

tancredo is a freaken hypocrite. he comes from a family of immigrants and he's preaching to stop immigration. he's pathetic.

Dreamer X · 04-15-2009, 05:41 PM

Frame Job...-_-

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At UNC, student protesters crash Tom Tancredo's party