Two of our grandchildren were at “The Game” on Nov. 23 and had their first real lessons in civil disobedience and bigotry, all in the hourlong intermission caused by the combined Harvard-Yale students’ “climate change emergency” protest.
I can only imagine what they might have learned about leadership and respect for the freedom of expression, had Yale’s President Peter Salovey taken over the public address system 20 minutes into the students’ climate change protest and said something like, “I know you students sitting on our 50-yard line feel deeply about the issue you protest. You’ve made your point and we are committed to continuing the discussion, but in another time and place. Your classmates and their families and thousands of others deserve the chance to participate in this important experience in their lives — many for the last time. Please leave peacefully and we will talk on Monday, and your classmates and friends will get to see through what they have accomplished so far today.”
Instead, 42 were arrested.
The second lesson came in the form of bigotry both on and off the field. Some Yale football players turned to the Yale crowd, giving thumbs-down and throat-slitting gestures. Then, shouts from behind us began, “Security! Cuff the commies!”, “Tear gas would work!,” “Where are the dogs?,” “Transfer to Berkeley!” (my wife Marsha’s favorite)
A man behind me asked “so, what’s the emergency?” I said the students are deeply upset that so few people are listening to the fact that we’ve got about a decade to turn this around, or their grandchildren aren’t going to have any place to live. “Oh.”
The gut-wrenching comparisons to a Trump political rally were seering. Indeed, what are we becoming? Maybe we’ll find out as we watch Yale and Harvard deal with this “disturbance.” There were, of course, tens of thousands of people at that game who were not bigots, but in the face of the ugly chants, most stayed silent for fear of what opposition might ignite.
Sound familiar? “First they came for the socialists …” This is the opening line from Martin Niemoller’s 1946 poem about silence in the face of bigotry and extremism. We can all do better, and time is no longer on our side.
Kyle D. Pruett, M.D.
Northampton
The writer is a clinical professor of psychiatry, and a 1965 graduate of Yale’s School of Medicine.