Opinion in Brief
University of Virginia students protesting for a “living wage” increase have been portrayed by many media outlets as today’s youth finding a backbone and doing some old-fashioned ’60s style protesting, but those of us with better things to do than take cell phone pictures of our buddies being politely escorted away by university police (and probably putting them up on Facebook) know that what it amounts to is wishful posing.
University of Virginia students protesting for a “living wage” increase have been portrayed by many media outlets as today’s youth finding a backbone and doing some old-fashioned ’60s style protesting, but those of us with better things to do than take cell phone pictures of our buddies being politely escorted away by university police (and probably putting them up on Facebook) know that what it amounts to is wishful posing.
Do these students actually care about the people they’re supposedly fighting for? If they did, why would they do something as obviously pointless as refusing to leave a building or not eating? Does anyone really care if a U.Va. student is refusing to eat? Where are the Molotov cocktails, the effigies and – most importantly – the general stick-it-to-the-man attitude the cooler set of our parent’s generation had? Where were these protests during the first days of the war in Iraq, or over the Patriot Act?
These school employees should be able to negotiate their own contract, and the bottom line is the fact that these students are protesting in their name is hurting more than helping.
