The kiddie coup at Mizzou

But last year’s upheaval in Ferguson, Missouri, has changed the dynamics. A lot of young people, including some from nearby Mizzou, got caught up in the protests following the Michael Brown shooting.
Although the evidence showed that Brown was the aggressor and had been shot because he attacked a cop, that reality doesn’t matter to those who continue to use the incident to fan the flames of victimhood.
At Mizzou, several black students have apparently been subjected to hearing some ugly words spoken by idiot white students. One student went on a hunger strike to protest campus “insensitivity.” A protest movement sprung up with a de rigueur tent camp on campus. The protesters demanded university officials deal with “racism” on campus — exactly what the protesters wanted officials to do isn’t clear.
When university leaders didn’t react quickly enough to suit the protesters and when the president didn’t get out of his car during the university’s homecoming parade to meet with protesters blocking the street, the reaction went viral. That’s when black football players played a trump card and said they wouldn’t run the pigskin until the president resigned.
The kiddie coup had won.
And that’s what this is, a group of spoiled kids who don’t know what they’re talking about and who are making a mockery of their parents and grandparents real struggles with Civil Rights.
Nobody at Mizzou endorses racism. I’ve spent enough time on that campus over the last 15 years to get a pretty good feel for the culture there. While there have been reports of some isolated incidents of drunk white kids using the “N” word, as far as I know no black students have been physically harmed, nor have they been denied access to an education.
Mizzou doesn’t have separate bathrooms for black and white students.
Mizzou doesn’t have separate cafeterias for black and white students.
Mizzou doesn’t have separate water fountains for black and white students.
Mizzou doesn’t have separate classrooms for black and white students.
Mizzou doesn’t deny black students the right to vote.
The truth is, Mizzou was one of the first traditionally all-white universities to open its doors to black students in an era (1950) where that was a highly controversial and courageous act.
There is no evidence of institutionalized racism on college campuses today. In fact, most universities take great pains to recruit kids of color onto their campuses.
But these kiddies don’t care about the truth. All they care about is advancing their world-view of being victims, even if they’re only victims of their own uninformed cultural biases.
Forgotten now is how these protesters physically confronted reporters who were covering the situation.
“Hey hey! Ho ho! All reporters have to go!” chanted the protesters, including a couple of adult professors who got caught up in the events.
First Amendment rights apparently only apply to protesters, not journalists. The freedom of speech and to assemble is only for “victims,” not the rest of us.
If this sense of misplaced victimhood were isolated to Mizzou, it’d be different. But in college campuses all across the nation, this warped thinking has taken hold. Every little word, no matter how innocent, is seen to be a “micro-aggression.” If you ask a black student if he’s an athlete on campus, that’s seen as being racist.
And now students demand that campuses create a “safe space” for them such that they aren’t exposed to ideas, words or images they disagree with. Those things might harm their sensitive, politically correct little brains.
So now we have this victimhood culture running a major American Midwestern university. Perhaps the president of Mizzou was a jerk. But more likely, he was thrown under the bus to appease the kiddie cause and to make sure the football team played last Saturday. It wasn’t black football players that was really important, it was the green money they represent to the alumni.
Missou’s president should have stood his ground, told the protesters they were a bunch of ignorant kids whose words and actions put a stain across those who fought against real racism when it was a legitimate issue. A lot of brave black men and women fought and died for rights that these kids take for granted.
And he should have told the football players to take a hike, and oh by the way, turn in your scholarships on the way out.
By bowing to this kiddie coup, Mizzou has emboldened radical kids on other campuses, giving them an air of legitimacy they don’t deserve. It has created an echo chamber for absurd allegations and mob mentality.
Nobody should take this hyper-sensitive baby-babble seriously.
There are a lot of real things in life to fight about, issues that need to be confronted, causes that need to be heard, stands that need to be made. Protesting about legitimate causes is a worthy and noble action and is part of the fabric of our nation and its history.
But the self-centered kids protesting at Mizzou, and on many other college campuses, don’t have a clue about what those really are.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.