During a protest to advocate for safe spaces for students of color and transgender individuals, University of California-Berkeley attendees blocked white students from using a highly trafficked campus pathway.
Last Friday, protestors carried banners that read “Fight 4 Spaces of Color,” and linked arms to form a human barricade in front of the campus’s Sather Gate. They only allowed non-white students to pass through.
“Whose university? Our university!” they chanted repeatedly.
One protestor complained there were too many white students in classrooms.
“When you walk into a class, what’s the majority in there?” one student angrily asked.
“I’m telling you, man, this is bigger than you,” a protestor told white student who was being blocked from passing by. “This is about ‘whiteness,’ this is not about you.”
Many white and Asian students were forced to take a dirt path through brush in order to skirt the protestors as they chanted: “Go around! Go around!” The protestors then moved to the student store, where they began to chant “Students over profit!” apparently in objection to the fact the store makes money from the items they sell.
One student climbed on top of a ledge to place an “eviction notice” on a second-story window. The notice insists the store must relocate to another part of the campus and give the building to students of color belonging to the LGBTQIIA+ community, according to Heat Street.
The notice ends with a warning: “If you fail to vacate immediately, community action will continue to escalate with the goal of eliminating any revenue generation.”
The loud protestors then took their chants inside a student union building where students were studying.
The protests eventually moved to block a busy intersection in front of the campus.
This isn’t the first time college students have asked for racial segregation on campus. Last year, UCLA students demanded a separate “Afro-house”exclusively for students of color.
