Morehouse Students Turn Their Backs, Walk Out of Graduation as Joe Biden Gives Speech
Morehouse Students Turn Their Backs, Walk Out of Graduation as Joe Biden Gives Speech
The crowd was divided as Biden took the stage to deliver the commencement address.
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Lessons in headline engineering
Another possible headline was "At Morehouse, Biden says dissent should be heard because democracy is 'still the way'" or another "Biden tells Morehouse graduates that scenes in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas war break his heart, too"
Outside of the ceremony, a small number of protestors gathered while the commencement itself did not see any major disruptions.
Last week, Morehouse College President David Thomas said he would rather halt proceedings than have students escorted away for protesting.
"If my choice is 20 people being arrested on national TV on the Morehouse campus, taken away in zip ties during our commencement, before we would reach that point, I would conclude the ceremony," he said on NPR's Weekend Edition.
But, none of that happened -- either halting the ceremony or tackling or pepper spraying any of the people who were draped in Palestinian flags or turning their chairs around.
DeAngelo Fletcher, Morehouse College's valedictorian, closed his address to his classmates by addressing global conflict, particularly the Israel-Hamas war.
"For the first time in our lives, we've heard the global community sing one harmonious song that transcends language and culture," he said. "It is my sense as a Morehouse Man, nay – as a human being – to call for an immediate and a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip."
IDK how much more pro Palestinian than that he got, and it sorta sounds like "both sides." But whatever. Anyway apparently Biden stood up and shook his hand after. Here's the whole video; Biden's part starts at around 1:43:30. Comparing the tenor of the thing if you take a look at it firsthand, against the tenor that's created from reading this particular headline, is a good little window on what they were trying to do by writing the headline that way (i.e. not to inform about what happened), and what ozma was trying to do by posting it here.
I don't actually think it matters all that much what anybody says about Gaza. Biden stopping the weapons shipments, pushing for an immediate cease fire and humanitarian aid, and supporting an ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu would be a good start. I think mostly this commencement speech is notable in that, hey look, (1) there was protest and it was ok (2) you can make things sound way different depending on which aspects you present in the media coverage.
Lessons in headline engineering
Another possible headline
"Morehouse alumni give Biden a standing ovation"
Did you not see the students that stood and turned their backs during Biden's propaganda speech? What about what was going on outside?
https://x.com/fizapirani/status/1792255493500502221-
https://x.com/p00ja_pat/status/1792247871670043119
Good for them. They're standing up for what they believe in, and I agree with them, and I definitely think that this type of thing has some impact on Biden's policies. Although at this rate, all the Palestinians will be dead before he works his way slowly and gradually around to the idea that maybe he'll have to do more than a sternly worded phone call with Netanyahu in order for the killing to stop.
You'll note that, because Biden bears little resemblance to the monstrous authoritarian caricature you try several times a day to paint him as, he and the college (who I'm sure talked with him about this exact issue, beforehand) both made no effort to "crack down" on them, and in fact he explicitly called out their protest as a good thing, during his speech.
(My point wasn't that the headline was a direct lie, but an example of engineering a single true fact by blowing it up and warping it to create a slanted picture of reality in the reader's mind. That's why I sent the full unedited video, as a way of contrasting it with a single event or a single picture taken from the perfect angle. I actually can't visit X video links since Elon fucked things up, but if you want to send me some non-X videos I'm happy to take a look at those, too.)
(Edit: Actually, I think the thing that they walked out as he gave his speech might be an actual lie. According to The New York Post, which seems to be the source for ozma's photo, it sounds to me like the students who left stayed through Biden's speech and then left during a later part when he was still on stage.)
I know it's hard to comprehend that there's people that aren't Trumpers/Republican that don't support genocide Joe, but there's literally millions of us.
And with regards to the photo you claim was from NYP...
Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/19/biden-morehouse-college-commencement-speech
I don't think you're a Trumper/Republican because you don't support Genocide Joe. I think you're a Trumper/Republican because the way you don't support him doesn't make any fucking sense. You criticize him for things he objectively didn't do, and you offer no particular solutions that would seem to lead to a better outcome for those of us who live in the US and want it to do less killing here and abroad, and the only solution that you seem to offer -- refusing to vote for him and offering an endless drumbeat of propaganda about him -- has an excellent possibility of leading to a catastrophically worse outcome for everyone. Including Palestinians. And, you're so vocal and consistent in criticizing him -- and only him -- for such a big variety of things real and imagined that it's hard for me to take away any possible conclusion than that you're trying to make sure he doesn't get elected.
It's possible that you're simply a very confused leftist. IDK. But that's my take on it. I note, also, that the story linked to also explicitly contradicts the headline, in terms of when students left ("walked out") from the ceremony:
Several students walked out of the graduation ceremony while Biden was presented with an honorary degree following his speech, CNN reported.
So they stayed to listen to him speak, and then walked out in protest when he was done speaking? This is impossible, to me, to read as anything other than a deliberate propaganda construction built on people leaving to go to the bathroom or something. IDK, maybe I'm missing something.
(Edit: Also, when I said the protestors were awesome and it's good that they let them protest, because it's a message Biden needs to hear because he is wrong, and then you immediately pretended that I had said the opposite and started lecturing me about how legitimate it is to disagree with Biden, I honestly didn't even notice because I'm sorta numb to that kind of thing at this point.)
Trumpers/Republican that don't support genocide Joe, but there's literally millions of us.
Disregarding the stupid "gEnOciDe jOe" comment, do you have a source for millions of people willing to switch from voting for Joe Biden in 2020 to not voting for him in 2024?
There's literally no candidates with a better track record on this than Biden, and any candidates that could have a better Palestine policy aren't going to win.
I will be one of the millions not voting for the butcher of Palestine. There's no way that a liberal could spin that he's the lesser evil.
From the rest of us trying to avoid a much, much worse outcome: Kindly go fuck yourself.
What's worse than genocide, and how are you able to convince yourself that murder is not the lesser evil?
Well for one, many people have problems calling this a genocide yet, me for one. I've had an entire branch of my family wiped out by the Holocaust, 90% of Belarussian Jews were exterminated, that's literally almost everyone. The Germans purposely went door to door killing as many people as possible.
Meanwhile the highest estimate for civilian deaths in Gaza in 30k, or almost 1.5%. There's a massive massive massive difference between these two. Israel isn't going door to door trying to kill as many Palestinians as possible or indiscriminately bombing refugee camps for the fun of it, they just don't care if they kill 10 civilians for one Hamas member.
And on the other hand, literally every other candidate would do worse than Biden in Gaza, Every. Single. One.
He's not just the lesser of two evils, he's literally the only option.
It doesn't matter what you call it by. Its very own definition. It is genocide and it is being committed by a fascist liberal, and trying to claim that somebody else would commit murder worse is asinine.
Israelis don't need to go door-to-door to kill everybody because they're using US supplied weapons and white phosphorus to carpet bomb them.
Israelis don't need to go door-to-door to kill everybody because they're using US supplied weapons and white phosphorus to carpet bomb them.
Disregarding the rest of your comment, just this is dumb enough alone and shows how you feel about the situation.
Israel hasn't been carpet bombing Gaza, Gaza is tiny, Israel has enough weaponry to immediately flatten the entire place tomorrow if they want. What you're saying is incredibly disconnected from reality, and if it was true the casualties would be much much higher by now, almost in the millions.
Israel has been doing targeted strikes, not carpet bombing, even if it doesn't seem like it because they're still murdering thousands of children. When Israel encounters any form of resistance, whether that be an IED, rocket, or small arms fire, they stop, issue an evacuation order for that neighborhood, wait, and then bomb the shit out of it and storm it. The majority of the deaths have come from them not properly notifying an area they were supposed to evacuate before bombing it, or from civilians still being in the area after a proper evacuation order.
This is effectively the exact same thing Russia is doing in Ukraine, still fucking awful, still needs to be stopped immediately, and Biden still isn't doing enough.
But it's not the carpet bombing genocide you claim it to be.
Holy shit dude, what's yalls obsession with calling everyone who disagrees with you a liberal.
It's almost as if you take the word liberal as a slur
Well when I've been a member of a socialist party for almost ten years now and worked on several socialist's campaigns yeah it kinda does.
When you call everyone liberals it makes it super obvious yall think you're the only form of leftists meanwhile a lot of the people yall are calling "libs" have put far more effort towards revolutionizing society than you could ever dream of.
Liberals are not even remotely leftist so they are in their own group. They support capitalism in all the oppression that comes with it, and they will defend their version of the oppression that comes with it tooth and nail
Yep I'm perfectly aware that's the traditional leftist idea of a liberal. I wasn't calling liberals leftists, simply saying that when you call other leftists/communists/socialists liberals just because you dislike their foreign policy takes you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Theres nothing explicitly liberal about zionism, and you can come to either a Zionist or anti-Zionist point of view from leftism, as is obvious from Israel and Palestine both being controlled by socialists for the first 40 years of their history.
A liberal? Did you mean to say progressive?
You're a genocide denier now?
No, this very well could be a genocide, and the Biden admin needs to work to stop it as soon as possible, in a way that creates a lasting peace.
That doesn't answer the question of who you think is possibly better for palestine and could win.
You have no capacity to honestly defend your opinions, do you?
That's a rhetorical question, because you constantly show you don't based on what you respond to (and what you choose not to in threads like this). There's a reason no one takes you seriously, because trolls are only worth mockery and derision.
Good lord you're a fucking asshole.