Black Student Union members block Sather Gate on Saturday morning

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Daily Cal

BY MELISSA WEN

Members of the campus’s Black Student Union blocked Sather Gate on Saturday morning, redirecting Cal Day attendees around both sides of the gate as members protested the current campus climate for black students at UC Berkeley.

After assembling in front of Sproul Hall holding Black Lives Matter signs and speaking into megaphones, the students marched to Sather Gate at about 11:30 a.m. For more than an hour they remained lined up in front of the gate, tying rope across it. By about 1 p.m., they opened the gate.

“This inconvenience is nothing compared to the inconvenience that black students feel on this campus,” said Myles Santifer, chair of the BSU and a UC Berkeley junior.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people streamed through campus for Cal Day, an annual event held to showcase the campus, particularly for prospective students and parents. Although a few people attempted to push through the gate — one man tripped as he tried to struggle through — most people walked around the gate.

FULL story at link.


RACHAEL GARNER/STAFF

Read more: http://www.dailycal.org/2015/04/18/black-student-union-members-block-sather-gate-on-cal-day-morning/

[seveneyes]

1. Demands to rename Barrows Hall to honor Assata Shakur, an activist who has been dubbed a terrorist

[7962]

7. "dubbed"? Shes a convicted murderer.

I think there are probably 10,000,000+ other black men or women who would deserve the honor more than her.

[warrant46]

2. If Cuba opens up

It will be interesting to see what will happen to Shakur

In 1977, Shakur was convicted of the first-degree murder of New Jersey State Trooper Foerster and of seven other felonies related to the shootout. Shakur was incarcerated in several prisons in the 1970s. She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba in 1984 after living as a fugitive for a few years, and received political asylum. She has been living in Cuba ever since. Since May 2, 2005, the FBI has classified her as a domestic terrorist and offered a $1 million reward for assistance in her capture. On May 2, 2013, the FBI added her to the Most Wanted Terrorist List; the first woman to be listed. On the same day, the New Jersey Attorney General offered to match the FBI reward, increasing the total reward for her capture to $2 million.

[hughee99]

3. I'm sorry to say this, but I have to say...

“This inconvenience is nothing compared to the inconvenience that black students feel on this campus,” said Myles Santifer, chair of the BSU and a UC Berkeley junior.

They are looking to get a dormatory? (Barrows Hall) renamed and a few new black employees in the admissions and athletic office to help black students? It sounds like issues these students are trying to address would be called "White people problems" in almost any other black community in America.

[petronius]

4. Not a dorm - it's a large academic building housing Political Science,

Sociology, African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Native American Studies, The Energy and Resources Group, Department of Gender & Women's Studies. Named for a Poli Sci professor and university president in the 1910-20s...

[hughee99]

5. Thanks, I haven't been on campus before,

So I wasn't sure what kind of building it was.

[Roy Rolling]

6. Sather Gate

I spent more days at Sather Gate than I care to acknowledge. But, I mean, come on. Cal Berkeley is one of the most liberal and accommodating campuses in the world. Comparing brothers who are shot dead by police to a building being renamed seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Maybe those students have legitimate grievances, but saying "black lives matter" on a building naming diminishes the importance of the issue where the saying "black lives matter" originated---that of unarmed African-Americans being shot dead by police.