โBlack Vote, Black Power,โย a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black,ย
examines the issues, the candidates, and whatโs at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election.
รขยยรขยยThe past two weeks of campus protests have exposed the hypocrisy of Republicans who claim to stand for โlaw and orderโ and free speech.
As NYPD officersย convergedย onto Hamilton Hall at Columbia University Tuesday night, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called into Fox News and complained that police should have acted โa lot sooner.โ The protesters had done โtremendous damageโ to a New York City โlandmark,โ he told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity.
This from the man who sat in the White House watching TV and doing nothing forย 187 minutesย when the nationโs most important landmark, the U.S. Capitol, came under attack on January 6, 2021.
When it comes to โlaw and order,โ Trump and the Republicans believe that laws should only apply to certain people. We saw this with Trumpโs contradictory responses to two defining news events in his final year in office.
When racial justice protests erupted in the summer of 2020 after George Floydย was killedย by police in Minneapolis, Trumpโs response was forceful, condemning Black Lives Matter activists as โhoodlums.โ โTheyโre bad people. They donโt love our country. And theyโre not taking down our monuments,โ he objected.
But when the January 6 insurrectionists attacked the nationโs most sacred monument, Trump waited more than three hours before he reluctantly recorded a video message to the violent mob who tried to stop our democracy. โWe love you. Youโreย very special,โ Trump told the attackers. โI know how you feel.โ
He was not alone. A year after the January 6th failed coup attempt, the Republican National Committee adopted a resolution calling the attack โlegitimate political discourse.โ
Itโs hard to argue for law and order while youโre justifying an attack on Capitol Police Officers and defending a man who runs a company that wasย convictedย of criminal tax fraud two years ago and is currently on trial, facingย 88 chargesย in four criminal indictments.
The selective outrage from Republicans also exposes their hypocrisy about antisemitism.
When torch-bearing Nazis marched through the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting โJews will not replace usโ in 2017, Trump claimed there were โvery fineย peopleย on both sides.โ When 11 people were shot and killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, Trumpย blamed the synagogueย for not having armed guards on site. When Trump tweeted an anti-Semitic image of Hillary Clinton next to a pile of cash and theย Star of Davidย in 2016, Republicans still stood by him. And when Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed thatย Jewish space lasersย caused the 2018 California wildfires, many Republicans stood by her as well.
Even as Trump hasย been indictedย by four different grand juries of American citizens, Republicans keepย blamingย Jewish billionaire George Soros. They never launched a congressional investigation into how Trumpโs incendiary rhetoric contributed to aย rise in antisemitic hate crimesย when he was president, or about theย Neo-Nazisย who participated in the January 6 riot. But they are investigating college presidents and college students for antisemitism in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel.
Both should be examined, as well as the rise ofย Islamophobiaย in America, but Republicansย are only focusedย on one issue. Just today, the House passed aย divisive billย to crack down on student protests by defining criticism of Israel as a form of antisemitism.
The GOP goal is to exploit campus conflict to drive a larger agenda against higher education. They seek toย cut fundingย for universities,ย fire college professorsย and presidents, andย eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that challenge white supremacy.
Just aย few years ago, Republicans argued that we neededย new lawsย to protect free speech and unpopular ideas on college campuses. But now those same Republicans areย policing speech and arresting even peaceful protesters.
I taught for several years at Columbia University and City College of New York, and Iย support the right of students to protest peacefully on those college campuses and elsewhere, just as I support a two-state solution in the Middle East. I do not support violence from protesters orย fromย police,ย orย antisemitism, Islamophobia, or the harassment of Jewish or Muslim students.
For those who sympathize with the cause of Palestinians but donโt support college protests, I urge you to read Martin Luther King Jr.โs โLetter from a Birmingham Jail.โย Dr. King had no problem with protest and tension, but heย condemned protest critics who were โmore devoted to order than to justiceโ or preferred โa negative peaceย whichย is the absence of tensionย toย a positive peaceย whichย is the presence of justice.โ
The true path to peace is the same on American college campuses as it is in Israel and Gaza. Sustainable peace will not come through violent confrontation, displays of force, or retribution. Nor will it come from hypocritical show trials and stunt bills. It will only come by dismantling systems of oppression and replacing them with systems of justice.
Keith Boykinย is aย New York Timesโbestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith served in the White House, cofounded the National Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET talk showย My Two Cents, and taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York. Heโs a Lambda Literary Awardโwinning author and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles.
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