Posted on 03/31/2003 3:39:31 PM PST by Pyro7480
The recent remarks of Columbia University assistant professor of anthropology Nicholas De Genova, who wants "a million Mogadishus" for American troops overseas was just another stunning revelation of the leftist tumors that many call our institutions of higher learning in America. However, to those who know in particular the bias of Columbia University, and both its students and faculty, this is not surprising. In fact, I credt my experience visiting Columbia University as a freshman in college as one of the reasons why I am a conservative activist.
In the fall of 1998, I was a freshman at the University of Delaware. For as long as I can remember, I have been a patriotic American (my birthday is Indepedence Day). Due to the presidency of Clinton and because my father turned me on to Rush Limbuagh, one of the first things I did as a college student was to join the UD chapter of the College Republicans at student activities night. After being a member for not even two months, I attended a conference for young conservatives that was being hosted by the organization
We arrived outside the Columbia Faculty House where the conference dinner was taking place. As we approached, we noticed about 100 protestors strewn outside the entrance, on the other side of a crowd-control barrier. As we walked past them, the protestors, most of them students, started shouting, some of them saying "RACISTS!" One protestor chant that we remembered hearing throughout the weekend was "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, right-wing bigots, GO AWAY!" I was amazed at the sheer hatred of the protestors. This was coupled with the fact that I am multiethnic (half Filipino, half mixed white) and one of the other college Republicans was ethnically Mexican. We entered the Faculty House and didn't hear much from the protestors again that night, except when we opened the windows for a short time while we were getting ready for dinner.
That night's speaker was Ward Connerly. As a freshman college student with only two months of experience behind him, Connerly's speech was refreshing, and it was interesting to hear of the horror stories that a "minority conservative" can go through. The executive of AIA, Dan Flynn, and president of Accuracy in Media, Reed Irvine, were also present for the dinner. During his remarks, Mr. Irvine has vitriol for a student writer for the student daily the Columbia Spectator, who wrote an editorial a few days before the conference met, urging students to "make their feelings known" towards the visiting conservatives. At the end of the dinner, we left for our hotel, not knowing what would take place in the morning.
We woke up later than we should have for the start of the second day of the conference, but after getting dressed, we proceeded up to Columbia. When we arrived, we found that during the previous night, the Columbia administration had decided to limit attendance to only those who had Columbia University ID cards. Obviously, this meant that those from out of town, like my delegation from the University of Delaware, were out of luck. In protest, AIA decided to hold the conference outdoors on an overlook in Morningside Park in protest, in the chilly November weather. The situation was explained to us, and we proceeded almost as planned. As we waited for our lunch to arrive from a local sandwich shop, some of the protestors from the previous night decided to shop up. Their numbers began to grow. In the process, we began to become a bit concerned, due to our position that only had one entrance. Someone must have called the police, because after a short while, the NYPD showed up and put up some crowd-control barriers and set up of a line of officers to separate us from the protestors. The protestors started chanting again, calling us names. We could hardly hear Dinesh D'Souza's speech on Ronald Reagan due to their outbursts. I decided to approach some of the protestors to see what they might be distributing to their own kind. One had copies of the International Socialist Organization's rag, the Socialist Worker. I appproached him and I asked for a copy. He wanted me to pay for a copy that he was giving to others for free, since I was "obviously" one of the right-wing bigots, but after persisting, he gave me a copy.
The whole negative experience I had with the protestors that weekend, who were from local college student organizations such as the ISO, the Black Students' Organization, and local gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender student groups, between the name-calling (Racist! Bigot! etc.) and the cold-shoulder the guy with the copies of the Socialist Worker gave me, plus the anti-free speech stance of the Columbia administration, catapulted me into the world of conservative activism. Over the past four years, I have witnessed other disturbing behavior on the part of leftists, but it was my experience at Columbia University that would herald me in the open arms of the conservative movement. Thank you Columbia University. I wouldn't be the young conservative that I am today without you.
If any of you have not read Pyros paper on the roots of Islamic extremeisim I strongly sugest you do.
A facinating read IMHO.
Cheers,
knews hound
For a related article by David Horowitz, check out this link:
Moment of Truth (For the Anti-American Left)(Horowitz on the Aftermath of the De Genova Remarks)
ROTFL!!! Great story!!!
Columbia University Search for: NICHOLAS PAUL DE GENOVA
Name: NICHOLAS PAUL DE GENOVA
Title: ASST PROF
Dept: ANTHROPOLOGY
Mail Addr: DEPT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
416 HAMILTON
mail code 2880
Phone: MS 4-0199
+1 212-854-0199
Fax: +1 212-854-0500
UNI: npd18
E-mail
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