"The viral video of Lt John Pike casually pepper-spraying a line of peacefully seated student protesters has deep resonance for the Civil Rights generation. It's impossible to escape comparisons to Bull Connor ordering the use of fire hoses on the black youth of Birmingham on May 3, 1963. Pike sprays the students' faces as if they were cockroaches, many have said. The youth of Birmingham were sprayed with such force that some were knocked over like paper dolls. But it was segregation that was about to fall."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Paul Rosenberg, "Pepper Spray Nation", Aljazeera (2011)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Occupy_UC_Davis
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Occupy UC Davis
11 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Occupy UC Davis →
Related Quotes
"The pepper spraying of eleven UC Davis students is a startling visual revelation of a pattern repeated over two decad…"
"I don't know the events that led up to this confrontation; I would assume the police asked these protestors to leave …"
"A regular guy named John Pike has become the new face of evil among people following the Occupy protests around the c…"
"Yesterday, the militarization of policing in the U.S. arrived on my own campus...These issues go to the core of what …"
"Despite all the rights of free speech and assembly flamboyantly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the reality is t…"
"By and large, Occupy has been a peaceful affair. Certainly pepper-spraying protesters while they sit calmly in a row …"
"The Davis students' message is clear: we are not the violent ones. We’re not like you. We stand for a different kind …"
"I am appalled by the way in which students at UC Davis were treated. Campus police should know better than to cavalie…"
"I mean, we're not dangerous people, we're students. I'm not a terrorist, I'm not an anarchist. I'm not any of those t…"
"Something is wrong with the system when our children, our students, struggling peacefully to have their voices heard,…"