March 1, 2017 - 3 pm
FYI- New York University (NYU) is a private nonprofit research university based in New York City; a world-class university, operating NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai and 11 global academic centers in Accra, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Florence, London, Madrid, Paris, Prague, Sydney, Tel Aviv, and Washington, D.C. Alumni include heads of state, royalty, eminent mathematicians, inventors, media figures, Olympic medalists, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and astronauts. NYU alumni are among the wealthiest in the world. According to The Princeton Review, NYU is consistently considered by students and parents as a "Top Dream College."
video crowd - chants - indoctrination 101
"
President Hamilton still refuses to declare NYU a Sanctuary campus.
For a so- called progressive university this seems totally out of
character. Some would say NYU is not progressive at all. We expect them
to protect us. We have to make them. "Whose campus OUR campus!"
Intro for faculty member who began speaking (off-camera) "... next speaker is an NYU Professor" (CHEERS/applause)
"Dear Allies, Please join us at our rally
in Kimmel from 3-4pm on Wednesday, March 1, to call on NYU to declare
sanctuary campus and demonstrate its commitment to members of the NYU
community made more vulnerable by the Trump administration. We want to emphasize that the event is for faculty, staff, and students!"
"Thank you all for being here. Do I really need this megaphone? You can't hear me without this? ... Well, first of all, I want to say how exciting the energy is in this room and (cheers) to
underscore how important it is for our President to declare NYU a
sanctuary campus. It's so important symbolically but it's actually
incumbent upon us as students faculty and staff at this university to
MAKE this campus a sanctuary campus without (my video begins) waiting for permission. (cheers)"
Transcription of her speech:
"Right
now there are 500,000 unauthorized workers in New York City. 99.9% of
those do not have criminal records, other than committing the crime of
having to cross the border without documentation. These unauthorized
workers as you've heard, time and again, if you bought yesterday at
whole foods, if you bought, you know, a garment of some local designer
in So Ho or Brooklyn, these are the people who are sewing your garments
and picking your fruit. It's the reason why you have ENTIRE indigenous
communities on Long Island from (? Chapa and Xauacca and D?... ?)
picking our vegetables and our fruits. And it's why we get those
vegetables and fruits so cheaply because, indeed, they ARE paid less
than you would have to pay a person with documents.
This
doesn't mean that WE can't, just because Hamilton hasn't declared this a
sanctuary campus, it doesn't mean that WE CAN'T. I mean, imagine what
it would be like if every dorm room, every office, every library, every
classroom were OPEN to undocumented workers who are being PERSECUTED by
ICE. If we really turned this into a sanctuary, just like Judson Church
next door, can you imagine the optics of ICE agents trying to come and
remove a mother or a father who's taking refuge in our university? Can
you imagine the optics of ICE having to storm a university campus to
remove these people?
We
have a very powerful role we can play, especially in New York City,
where so many, so many of our unauthorized immigrants work
and..uh play, too.
The
other thing that's very, very important to remember, especially, I love
the chant, uh, you know, "Education and jobs rather than mass
deportation". But, let's not kid ourselves. One of the reasons why Trump
wants to expand ICE and deportation (and ...) that's his job program. Hiring 10, 00 or 15,000 more ICE workers, that's the extent of his jobs program. (light laughter) And so we have to, we have to, you know, increasing the military [a ?... after his jobs program]
So we need to make this evident. It's incumbent upon us, like I said,
to be the voice, to be a sanctuary movement beyond whatever happens to
may or may not declare.
One
of the...we have to remember that sanctuary came into this country as
part of the abolition movement. And so sanctuary never saw its role as
limited to protecting, you know, the slaves that ran away. They saw
their role as (??) the voices of those who have been enslaved. Just as we have to understand our role as very privileged faculty and students and staff (??) the voices of unauthorized workers in our community.
Beyond
the DACA students that we have here, who we of course have to protect,
let's not forget that DACA students do still have some authorization.
But what about their friends? What about their families? We have to figure out ways of (??) as a united community in the face of this blatant racist law that Donald Trump is trying to enforce.
The
other thing that's very important is, I'm going to get a little nerdy
on you all, is when Trump talks about all the jobs that NAFTA destroyed
in the United States. What he doesn't tell you is all the jobs that
NAFTA destroyed in Mexico. (applause/cheers) 4 million farms in Mexico were put out of work and
when you put a Mexican farm out of work you put generations of workers
out of work. Its not just the one farm owner. No. You're actually
setting into motion hundreds of people per farm looking for labor.
And
that's why they're here, doing that agricultural work; those
agricultural jobs. It's not a coincidence that 11 million Mexican
unauthorized workers who are here, came after the passage of NAFTA.
Because NAFTA destroyed jobs in that economy, just as it destroyed here.
'Cause the sole purpose of NAFTA was to lower the cost of labor across
the Americas. It did so very successfully. And one of the consequences
that we have now had to bring in to our community, people who are
willing to do work, jobs that... whose payment has been pushed down.
So,
we have to remember that, when NAFTA was negotiated, it negotiated for
the free passage of goods. It negotiated the free passage of capital,
but what was left out of that dream (??) labor. So
that's what unauthorized workers are doing here, they're working.
Because they can't find jobs in their country and because the price of
labor has been pushed so far down that U.S. citizens can't afford to
reproduce themselves, doing the jobs at that hourly wage.
So, uh, anyway (?) (cheers/applause)
We don't have to communicate. We don't have to wait for Hamilton to
declare this a sanctuary campus and to make it a sanctuary campus. Let's
figure out ways of inviting those unauthorized workers into our class
rooms, into our dorms, into our residential campuses, into our offices
to share their stories and to, also, find refuge. Thank you."
I leave you with a few links that convey the warped perspective of the NYU students: "Whose campus, OUR campus."
In Solidarity,
"Hi All, Below are two links to some of the correspondence NYU Sanctuary has had with President Hamilton. Hope they help contextualize the the rally tomorrow!"
.
"Establishing a Sanctuary Campus at NYU: Explainer"
"NYU Sanctuary Edits to President Hamilton's Notes"
The Sanctuary Campus rally is in "support of the most vulnerable community members" ; to spread awareness about President Hamilton’s deliberate choice to not declare NYU as a Sanctuary
"President
Hamilton, as you said that you are interested in substantive language
and substantive actions. So why does NYU publicly celebrate the language
of diversity and inclusion, and yet refuses to stand in solidarity with
students who are at risk and people who are at risk, and stand up to
this federal regime of White nationalism? In your refusal to declare
Sanctuary, whose interests are you protecting?" #TeaWithAndy#NYUSanctuary
"You
said you said you are taking all measures to protect undocumented
students. I would like to know why in the month of February, did the Law
school invite ICE recruiters onto campus?"#TeaWithAndy#NYUSanctuary
AND THAT MY FRIENDS, is what these very privileged students are bombarded with "day in and day out", compliments of the Marxist influence that runs deeply through faculty and staff at NYU. Progressives. Indoctrination 101. What a waste.
++Pictures and video property of Pamela Hall++
Flickr slide show:
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