How this protest fits into recent history, what to carry moving forward, and what to leave behind.

This article is more than 5 months old.

BY CHRISTINA LIEFFRING & EMILY MILLS, TONE MADISON, MAY 27, 2024 

The tents are gone from Library Mall, and after just short of two weeks of encampment, protest, and negotiations, UW-Madison administrators and the UW-Madison chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) reached an agreement on May 10. 

News and Politics Editor Christina Lieffring and reporter Emily Mills sat down on May 14 to discuss how the encampments compare with previous protests in tactics and messaging, how the media and adults refuse to take student protests seriously, what leftist movements could learn from the encampment, and how to move forward. Our conversation lasted for over an hour, and it wasn’t terribly organized, so the transcription below has been adjusted for both clarity and readability. 

The agreement, and the disagreements to follow

Christina Lieffring: What do you make of the agreement protestors reached with UW-Madison’s administration at the end?

SPONSOR

Emily Mills: Complex feelings, nuanced feelings about that. I understand how it was reached. And I have a lot of sympathy and respect for the people, especially the students who are involved in negotiating, because I know that for a long time, they weren’t getting anything out of the UW-Madison administration. So to have gotten any agreement, especially with deadlines for programming, bringing Palestinians to campus, evaluating programs, and at least getting a commitment to “We’re going get you a meeting with the foundation people who do hold the purse strings on these investments.” That’s the place to go and put the pressure on. I think that’s all good. 

It is, of course, a real disappointment that no commitment [was made] to “We will also work with you to get that divestment if we find these investments in there that don’t meet these standards.” Especially compared to the UW-Milwaukee agreement, which has some tangible divestment stuff and some very clear language about what’s happening in Gaza. I don’t blame the students for that loss. I blame Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin. I blame the administration for absolutely refusing to engage in any good faith and for engaging in what were essentially union-busting tactics against those students and their supporters. I blame them for not being able to have the stomach to take the moral stance against what is happening in Palestine.

Get our newsletter

The best way to keep up with Tone Madison‘s coverage of culture and politics in Madison is to sign up for our newsletter. It’s also a great, free way to support our work!

Subscribe

Christina Lieffring: Or even acknowledge it.

Emily Mills: I talked to one of the student negotiators—they spent hours just trying to get the word “occupation” into the agreement, in reference to what’s happening in Gaza. So I know they worked really hard. And I also know that two weeks was a long time to sustain the camp, and to sustain the negotiations in the middle of finals season with graduation coming up and people leaving campus after that. 

The camp was having a hard time sustaining itself, because of the usual issues that pop up. An issue that wasn’t happening on some of the private campuses, [was that] we’re a public space where a lot of unhoused folks live. They joined the encampment, mostly for shelter and food, which I can’t blame them. The people in the encampment were super sympathetic and really compassionate. Some of those folks who were unhoused were great, really involved, and got really interested in the issues. And some of them had serious drug and alcohol issues that were causing safety issues, a lot of stress, and a lot of outside scrutiny. It was getting bad. It wasn’t sustainable. 

So what do you do? I mean, they were planning to take the camp down on Sunday anyway. The real gut-punch was SJP committing in the agreement to not do anything to disrupt commencement or anything else in the future that was illegal. That was maybe giving up a little bit too much, but I’m sure they were told that you won’t get anything unless you agree to these things. It is a scary union-busting negotiation tactic. There’s some valid arguments to be made that they could have just walked away and not made any agreement, that could have been a win as well. I don’t know. I don’t have the wherewithal or the power to make a judgment about what was right and what wasn’t. 

I really do respect the effort that went into it, and I respect the fact that they were very clear that this is not the end of this fight. “We are committed to continuing to put pressure on.” It’s very spelled out in the agreement: “We don’t have control over other organizations, other groups, other autonomous actors and what they do. This is just us making this commitment, because we’re trying to get this agreement.” That’s pretty savvy. So yeah, I think lots of lessons learned. No, things probably weren’t done as perfectly or as best as it could be and I think there’s some valid criticisms. I’ve already seen people involved in the encampment negotiations having really good conversations about that very thing and how do we do better in the future. 

I hope that that continues because the last thing I want to see is the movement itself, the people within it, just tear each other down and yell at each other and have all this infighting that so often destroys these really important movements. I think we have to remember that we’re all human. We have to try our best. We have to learn how to trust each other in these really trying stressful situations where all the power is on the other side. That’s really hard. But we’ve seen it can work. We know what it is, what it can do, especially when you’re willing to ask for help and do more collaboration and bring more people in. 

I think the student negotiators could have used a lot more help, honestly. I don’t say that to denigrate what they did, or their abilities, but this is a huge thing and I don’t think it’s fair to expect that a very small group of students could do all this on their own. It’s just a lot, for anybody. 

I’m cautiously optimistic, because the biggest win of this is the community that they formed and the connections that were made. Take that into the future and build momentum and build a movement, [with] more solidarity and more collaboration around these causes and issues.

Christina Lieffring: It’s also worth noting that two weeks is nothing to sneeze at. Other than the one raid, they managed to keep people safe.

Emily Mills: It was the police who made people unsafe. They didn’t do anything to provoke that.

SPONSOR

Christina Lieffring: A two-week encampment in a public space. Lots of people in and out [of that] public space. And [they] managed to build something that was really meaningful and beautiful, that everyone was able to safely walk away from.

Emily Mills: That’s a really crucial point. It’s two things at once: amazing to do that for two weeks, and to accomplish what they did, and to also recognize that two weeks is a blink when it comes to these larger social movements. This is not a sprint. We really have to be in this for the marathon. And who knows how long it’s going to be? So make this sustainable. How do you make it sustainable? How do you keep your energy up? How do you take care of yourselves? Because it’s going to be really hard. It’s already been really hard. I’ve seen the toll it’s taken on people who are heavily involved in it: it’s a lot. It’s a lot of work over those two weeks.

Covering protests with a point of view

Emily Mills: My journalism is very much a part of my activism. I’ve never made a secret of having a political viewpoint when I write, and I always try to make it very clear and be very transparent. But [I] still try to do a really good, thorough job of getting a sense of what’s going on and reporting it out. 

Especially after having gone through the Act 10 protests, and seeing the massive disconnect between what was actually happening on the ground and what people were saying, and who was there versus what was coming up in a lot of media and the narrative spawned by politicians. It always feels really important [to report on protests]. I can try to be one person that at least tries to push back and offer, “Hey, here’s what we’re actually seeing on the ground, what’s actually going on.” 

I sensed that might be the case here, so I wanted to be involved. I also wanted to not try to push myself in and insert myself into something that was fundamentally a student-led and -organized movement. So I was trying to find ways to be eyes, be on the outside, be bail support if it was needed, and take video in case there were weird arrests and everything else. I’m trying to be someone who was around the perimeter, offering that kind of support while also covering it as best as I could and see what’s going on.

The impact of policing

Christina Lieffring: One thing that was definitely palpable for me was that there was a lot of tension. [On Monday, April 29, the first day of the encampment] there were a lot of people who seemed very nervous about what the response would be from police. After the actual arrests and crackdown, what was the mood of the camp?

Emily Mills: From my perspective and talking to other people, that tension was very real. People who had been through any kind of big protests or movement before were, understandably, more prepared for what happened, and how to handle that. [But] most of the students, obviously, they’re 19-, 20-, 21-year olds. Even if, intellectually, you understand that this is something that could and probably will happen, it’s very different to be in the middle of this thing and not know if you’re about to get your head bashed in, or to be arrested and hauled away in zip ties. It’s really traumatizing.

There was a lot of kind of shock and [people] being really unsettled, and angry. It certainly seemed to heighten that tension and it seeded some paranoia, some of which is absolutely warranted. [It] led to some good security protocols and having people on night watch keeping an eye out for if it was going to happen again. And some of it, unfortunately, and understandably, led to more distrust, and a level of anxiety that wasn’t healthy for anybody, personally or for organizing purposes.

It’s hard to fight against that, and it’s hard to know how to help people through that in such a grassroots, scrambled, put-together, impromptu community. There was so much beautiful stuff that came out of that. [It fostered a] beautiful community, and [people] really tried to help each other. But this is a lot of young people in a really unusual situation, very high stress, also trying to balance their lives, their schoolwork, and everything else. Also understanding the really critical, pressing, awful, heartbreaking, and infuriating slaughter happening in Gaza that you’re trying to raise awareness about and get people to give a shit. And the university that maybe you love, or have gotten a lot out of, is treating you like crap or seemingly dismiss[ing] your capacity as a person who can have serious concerns and be met as an adult at the negotiating table. 

But yeah, the vibe after [the raid] was this initial, real shock, anger, [and] frustration but it definitely also really motivated people. The motivation, the energy to up the game and escalate things and build that bigger encampment and really push definitely was supercharged by the raid.

The raid

[Emily’s partner participated in the camp and called them to let them know the camp was being raided on Wednesday morning, May 1. They arrived on site about 15 minutes into the raid.]

Emily Mills: I tried to be on the outside again, filming and watching what was happening. I watched several of the [police] running in and pushing people over with the shields in formation. And then you have that one cop designated to pull people through the shield, pull them out, and arrest them. I was watching a bunch of that happen and trying to keep an eye on my partner the entire time, too, just in case she got tagged. At one point she chucked her bag out to me just in case so that it would stay safe. 

They cleared all but one or two tents, I think, and people immediately were on the tech side like, “Hey, I have 20 more tents ready to go.” They were super on it, and had the whole thing rebuilt—and I think bigger and a little bit more well laid out—by the end of that day, [including] the food tents and the medic tent. 

There was a lot of scrambling to try to make it work and make it sustainable and safe for people and still stay on message. It was really fascinating. And I tried to plug in and offer, “Hey, do you need help typing up something? I’m really good at press releases. Do you need help with messaging? I’m happy to do that.” And I helped facilitate a meeting at one point because I’m really good at that. I was trying to find ways to be like, “Here’s some skills I have in life. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I might have some suggestions or things you need to think about. Because I really do care about this stuff. I’m going to try really hard to help you facilitate a functional meeting so you can make some actual decisions.” Because last time they were so committed to democratic decision-making and trying to organize. Some of that went really well and I think there were a lot of lessons learned.

On Mnookin and the perverse role of university leaders

Christina Lieffring: When Mnookin first came in, there was all this grumbling on the right, because she came from Berkeley. Now it turns out, she’s more than happy to bend over backwards to keep right-wingers happy, or at least reactionary centrists. I didn’t really have a strong opinion about her or her administration before this. But it really makes me wonder, whose interests are she actually serving? It doesn’t seem like it’s the students or the faculty.

Emily Mills: This ties to the trend we’re seeing [of] so many of those chancellors [not including Mnookin] who went before Congress to debase themselves, and then ended up having to resign anyway. You’re not facing people who are there because they’re actually concerned about free speech and student safety on campus. They’re there because they want to make universities, especially public schools of any kind, look bad and fit this narrative about them being bastions of left-wing indoctrination. They want to defund the entire thing. So many of these chancellors now who get hired are just development heads. They are investment people. They’re not people who really care about the academic community or having a robust, nuanced, supportive academic experience for lots of different kinds of fields and students. The Wisconsin Idea is not really what they’re there for. It’s to raise money and to please the wealthy donors and politicians who are holding the purse strings, who’ve been systematically robbing them for years and aren’t going to stop.

Christina Lieffring: I don’t understand their motivations, but they seem to, on some level, believe that if they placate the right people, these problems will go away. And they’re not going to go away. Instead, [for example] they announced an expanded deal with a private company with one of the colleges…

Emily Mills: The Honeywell subsidiary.

Christina Lieffring: Those things always come with strings attached. Anytime you have a private entity entering into a public space and giving money, they want something in return. What are they asking for? Let’s stop indulging bad-faith actors and let’s stop pretending that everyone who is willing to throw money and resources at a university has good intentions. I’m begging people to ask critical questions here.

Emily Mills: You would think. But there’s been a pretty stark shift in the administrative level of so many of these places over the number of decades.

Christina Lieffring: Which is why the whole argument of universities being liberal cesspools or whatever always makes me laugh.

Emily Mills: It’s just propaganda.

Christina Lieffring: If they were liberal, they would not be charging kids, what is it now? Twenty-something thousand dollars a year? For public school? That was what I paid for a private school 20 years ago. That’s insane. And they have how much money in their foundations?

Emily Mills: Huge endowments. It’s pretty ridiculous.

Intergenerational organizing

Emily Mills: I was glad that there were at least some handful of folks who did have a lot of organizing experience, who came and were really great about trying to help and offer that perspective. I think it helped a lot. There were plenty of students who were very on it as well, but I think it’s nice to have that balance of perspectives and experience levels. And I think we could have done with more of it. 

Frankly, older folks [tend] to dismiss and patronize younger people as being frivolous and silly and not knowing anything. And younger folks sometimes tend to dismiss older folks and be distrustful like, “Well, you’ve got nothing to offer either.” Successful movements recognize that everybody of every age group and experience level has something important to offer, and you’ve got to come together and work together on that. There was some of that happening, but I think there could have definitely been more. 

Christina Lieffring: The National Lawyers Guild had people there supervising. There were a lot of professors, and people were coming in and out, but there were definitely quite a few who stayed there throughout the entire encampment and even some stayed overnight. I was really impressed with the amount of support that these young people were getting from their professors who clearly—I mean, I would hope that a university professor would take their students seriously and recognize that they have valuable inputs and insights. But yeah, that was pretty heartening to see. It’s just too bad it doesn’t seem to trickle up to the rest of the administration.

Emily Mills: I think that was maybe the eye-opening experience for students in particular, probably some faculty, too: the level to which the administration will separate itself and really dig its heels in, separate from the people who actually make the institution what it is. UW-Madison professor Samer Alatout—who was the professor who was probably down there the most and speaking up the most, the one who got his head cracked in—was making that point over and over. How insulted and frustrated he was that the administration was trying to position itself as though it was the institution versus faculty, staff, and students—everybody else who really makes up the heart and soul and the blood vessels and everything else of the university. I was also really heartened by [UW-Madison professor and Tone Madisoncontributor Sami Schalk] and Samer. I know there were a handful of others who were really down there and in it, and I think are facing pretty serious fallout and consequences now. As their names get out in these news stories, you have to realize that going in, they take a real risk, like students take risks. I think there were worse consequences for students at other schools, not ours. Not that they weretgreat here, but hearing about students getting booted out of their housing or suspended—as far as I know, that hasn’t happened to anybody here. 

But professors can really face some serious backlash, or potential lawsuits and all kinds of things from these bad actors on the right, who already want to and are working to dismantle our university or public universities. They’re going to take any opening they can to come at you for taking a principled stance. So I’m all the more impressed and thankful for those who came out.

[The faculty/staff walkout on May 6] was probably 100-odd professors, adjuncts, staff, making very clear statements [in support of the encampment. There were conversations between faculty and the students and trying to coordinate. There was some amount of division still though, to where they weren’t able to work as closely and be a single unified force as maybe they should have been. It would have been more effective to push back against [the administration], but I think admin did an end-run around the students by talking to faculty. And faculty [were] doing their best, with good intentions, but maybe not accurately representing what the students wanted at every turn. [The administration’s tactic] was by getting different people into different rooms at different times versus having them all be a unified front. Classic tactic. 

The value of protest

Emily Mills: I’ve been losing my mind for the last several months in my small circle of radical queers, certainly seeing everybody talking about what’s happening in Gaza. But outside of that, not much. And [I’m] not seeing sort of the usual level of rallying and organization and protest in Madison pushing on some of these institutions. It really took the students to show up and show us how it was done. It was kind of a relief to be like, “Oh, thank god, there’s other people thinking about this and doing something and speaking up.” I needed to be there because I’d been losing my mind, feeling like I have no place to put this energy and this frustration. That’s a huge draw to it.

Christina Lieffring: That’s a huge benefit of protests. Even if you don’t get any tangible concessions out of it, just knowing that you’re not alone in your frustration, and in your concern about a particular issue, is really reassuring. I started going to university right before we invaded Iraq. We were already in Afghanistan, and I don’t think it can be overstated how much so much of the country was in lockstep with the Bush administration as part of that post-9/11 wave. I went to two protests against a possible invasion of Iraq at that point, and it was just so reassuring to know that I wasn’t alone, that there were lots of other people who were looking at this and thinking, “This is a really bad idea. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. What are we doing here?”

Emily Mills: You weren’t seeing that in most of the media representations of what people’s opinions are. It was all the same sort of narrative, but actually it turns out there’s a whole bunch of other people who smelled bullshit. It sounds like you and I were in college around the same time. I started in 2000. So I was a sophomore when 9/11 happened. And almost immediately there were some protests against the invasion of Afghanistan, and then I went to quite a few against the invasion of Iraq, including, I ended up in the huge one in Chicago—

Christina Lieffring: I was in Chicago.

Emily Mills: Nice. We walked down Lake Shore Drive. It was very cool. That was an educational experience, a very energizing one.

Christina Lieffring: I took a class on protest and our professor one day was just like, “Hey, there’s a protest. You guys just want to go?” And we did. And then that spring I got on a bus with a bunch of kids and we went down to Washington, DC. It was coordinated where there were protests in a bunch of different cities across the country. And it was huge. And I did not sleep well on the bus (it was an overnight bus trip) so I was bleary-eyed and there were so many people. I was in Washington, DC for the first time and there was a random moment where I was like, “Oh. The Washington Monument.” There was so much going on. And it was really cathartic. I lost my voice at the end of the day from all that shouting. Then I get home and I ask my friends, “Hey, guys, what did you guys hear about the protests?” And they were like, “What protests?” There were literally millions of people in the streets, saying this is a bad idea, and it got zero coverage.

Emily Mills: It’s eye-opening, right?

Christina Lieffring: Also like the way the Occupy [Wall Street] movement was covered. It was like, “Oh, these kids, they don’t have concrete demands.” Whereas, I was recently reading an article that was talking about how Occupy really changed the way we talk about social issues and economic disparity. This idea of the 99% and the 1%—they popularized that idea and it had an impact.

Emily Mills: They sure as shit tried really hard to dilute the messaging and the cause in the coverage [with the encampment]. It’s the same playbook every time. The interesting flip on this one—and it’s something else I want to shout out the student organizers in Madison [for] and pretty much every other encampment I’ve seen coverage of—is how on-message everybody is about: “Y’all are covering these campus protests and trying to make us out like it’s a bunch of rioting, and hooliganism. That it’s just about clout or whatever. And we are here because of what’s happening in Gaza. And we really want you to pay attention to that, and our country’s complicity.” The messaging always, always, always, pretty immediately came back to—or included—very, very clear call-outs of the situation. Why we are here and what’s going on. If anything, I think it’s an improvement over past [protests]. My long joke about liberal protests in particular is that you’ll show up and there’s signs for 50 different causes, right? Whereas if you go to something right-wing, it’s like this one. They’re very on message, or better or for worse, right? And I love that we care about so many things on the Left. It’s important. But also, sometimes you gotta have messaging discipline in order to get the needle moved on a particular issue. You’ve got to be really clear and consistent and concise and repetitive.

Christina Lieffring: Especially when you know that the media playbook is to say, “Oh, they’re not coordinated. They don’t know what they want. There’s nothing to see here. You don’t even know what they’re trying to say.”

Emily Mills: They really tried it with this one again. And that had a certain amount of success, but I feel like it had less success than normal. Because I think this generation, too, is just a lot more savvy when it comes to short messaging, for various reasons. And I will say, also, I’ve heard these conspiracy theories and people being all pissy about—Tone Madison‘s Scott Gordon wrote about this—these legacy journalists being like, “Oh, I can’t believe they had media points of contact with these protests, that feels like gatekeeping.” And every organization has designated media people who’ve been trained to talk to media, keep the messaging clear. That is a very normal thing. I’m impressed that they put these together at these encampments. I know there are people who showed up and are like, “Hey, I’ve got some experience with this. I think you guys should designate media contacts, just to keep things on message, keep it clear, have a point of contact you can send media to at any time.” This is just good tactics for anything. It’s not nefarious; this is how you do it. Because you can walk up to anybody and maybe they’re having a bad moment, or they haven’t had a chance to really articulate the points—

Christina Lieffring: Or they haven’t had enough to eat and say something out of pocket. And then if somebody is already walking into the camp with this dismissive attitude about student protesters, they get this offhand comment from one kid, and suddenly that’s—

Emily Mills: —That’s the whole camp. That’s the whole protest. I feel like some lessons of the past have been learned. There’s a direct line from Occupy to what’s happening now in the student encampments. And I know that people who were involved in Occupy have been helping out. Which is great. We need that. That’s movement-building.

De-escalation

Christina Lieffring: I was really impressed with the Gaza protests, particularly how they dealt with the fact that there were people who were trying to provoke them and trying to escalate the situation. Like on Monday [April 29], there was a group of kids who were walking around with these flags, and they said something about Israel—I don’t even remember what it was, but they weren’t with the camp, and it felt like they were trying to provoke a response. And I didn’t see anybody take the bait. People were just fine with just hanging out, doing their thing, sharing food, playing cards, studying. I really respect that level of self-discipline with that big of a group.

Emily Mills: I know it was a very intentional discussion in the group about how to react to people who are clearly trying to provoke. There were some people in the encampment who made the argument to engage, to have arguments, and to go at it, and maybe even escalate. Some of them had some compelling points, but I think the overwhelming majority, and the sort of consensus that was reached and everybody—even the people who made the other arguments—went along with was, “Look, they’re looking for any little excuse to come down on us. And we want to use that tactically, when we actually want to make a point and push something and break a law to make a point. We want to do that intentionally and not in petty arguments with people who are trying to provoke us. There’s nothing [in] good faith happening here. If they want to counter-protest, or have another point, they’re allowed to do that.” It was a real respect—even if they don’t respect the position, but a respect for the right to be. “They can be here too. That’s fine. They can say nasty things to us. And we’re not going to engage.” But yeah, I agree. That was pretty impressive. 

There were a couple instances that had to get de-escalated, but the marshals did some phenomenal work, honestly, to do that. And again, these are 19-year-old kids who are stepping in some very, very high tension [situations]. I saw one at the faculty/staff rally. While one of the faculty was reading out a statement from Jewish faculty and staff, there was a small cluster of undergrad students off to the side who were counter-protesting. One of the young men was extremely angry and started to shout over her, and one of the young marshals went up to him and had a conversation. And I mean, that kid did not want to calm down. He was angry. He was yelling at the marshal. But they got him to eventually chill out enough [that] this woman was able to go on and then give the speech without being constantly interrupted. No fights broke out. It was pretty impressive. 

An interfaith protest

Emily Mills: [In contrast] to other protests I’ve been at, [the UW-encampment] was probably the most faith-based, which is fascinating. I am a non-religious person. I was raised in the Christian church, but I am not religious, I’m not affiliated with anything. But I thought it was really beautiful, because it was a lot of Muslim students, a lot of Jewish students, a lot of Christian students, a lot of non-religious students, all banding together to protect Muslim students while they prayed. The Shabbat services [were] for everybody. To really dig in and have these conversations about religious tradition in a really interfaith, beautiful, sharing, and peaceful setting. That was really fascinating, because again, especially in Madison, it was not something I’ve experienced before, and I thought it was really cool. And clearly it was happening in a lot of these encampments and I think was an organic part of it. It also sent a really important message: this isn’t about religion, this is about government action, and the oppression of the people in a place. And you are trying to claim that this is all anti-Semitic, and there’s a whole bunch of Jewish folks here who are doing this too, so I don’t know how you get to call them anti-Semitic.

Christina Lieffring: It was very smart in that, the way they handled a lot of that stuff was very counter to some of the bigger narratives that we’ve seen about free speech on campus. “Oh, the kids won’t listen to counter-arguments.” And you’ve been hearing [that] at these encampments, people could come and they could say whatever they wanted, and it didn’t provoke a response. And they just asked, “Let her finish her speech.”

Emily Mills: Saturday night [May 4], I think maybe it was Hillel or someone organized like a Havdalah. And so it’s mostly the pro-Israel students on this one side of Library Mall, this big group blasting music and having a great time, waving Israeli flags and stuff. And the people from the encampment left them alone. A few of the people who were working as marshals who are Jewish, who were wearing Star of David necklaces, went over to join. Because well, this is a Jewish ceremony and celebration, [the marshalls thought they] should be able to join and have conversation. Unfortunately, there were a number of people who yelled at them, reamed them out, drove them away, and said that they weren’t real Jews. There were also a few people [who] they ended up having really good conversations with. They may not have agreed at the end of the night, but they left bumping fists. And I know that a number of those conversations happened throughout the week at the encampment: people who disagreed or had different takes on things and were able to have conversations, because the encampment was very welcoming, very chill. They had educational programming and all kinds of topics, it had programs for kids. 

It was this beautiful glimpse of, we’re fighting against something, but we’re fundamentally also trying to fight for a different world. These are little glimpses of that different world that we want. And it’s super important to be able to show people what’s possible. This is with no budget, no planning—imagine what we could do if we took the military budget that we’re sending off to support these wars, and slaughterhouses, and put it toward actually building the society that we want. It’s really important to see these moments and go down and experience them. It always makes me really sad when media is demonizing these places: “It’s super unsafe, and it’s all riots and terrible, you shouldn’t go down.” No, you should go down. They’re trying to keep you away, because this is actually a really eye-opening experience to see what’s possible and what people are trying. All different kinds of people who were there mingling and making it work.

Christina Lieffring: There’s this idea that this is a conflict about religion, and that the left is anti-religion. So that gives the right license to act like they are the ones who can speak on behalf of religious people. And I’ve been involved with interfaith movements as a non-religious person. It’s very interesting [that] those kinds of movements don’t get nearly enough attention, because they don’t fit into these narratives about the left and the right, who is on what side, and what is the center of these conflicts. At the end of the day, this isn’t about Judaism versus Islam.

Emily Mills: It’s a settler-colonial capitalist society using a religion, a national identity, and ethnicity as an excuse to enact their purification, power, and control of an area. That’s how our country was founded, too, right? This is all very familiar.

The point a lot of Jewish folks have made, and this applies to any religion in any group: there is such diversity within the Jewish community. There are a lot of anti-Zionist Jews, non-Zionist Jews (which is its own kind of category), Zionist Jews, and then there’s nuance even in between those groups, right? There’s nuance in terms of their feelings toward this current Israeli government versus the existence of an Israeli state. There’s no monolith here. The really compelling argument (and I wish I could remember who initially made it) was [claiming] that it is anti-Semitic to oppose what the Israeli government is doing—that’s anti-Semitic. Because you’re assuming that all Jews are the same. It’s painting them with one brush, and saying, they all want this one thing to be the same. Same with Islam and saying, “Oh, everybody in Islam is a radical fundamentalist who wants to oppress women.” No. There’s enormous amounts of nuance. Same thing in Christianity. There’s so many different denominations and, even within the denominations, disagreements about how to approach things. Why do you get to decide for an entire different religion what you would not want applied to your own? What really fucking galls me is that all of these hardcore right-wingers who have very clear records of actual anti-Semitism: riding for the great replacement theory, cozying up with neo-Nazis, and “good people on both sides” of Charlottesville—

Christina Lieffring: And shouting about George Soros whenever anything happens.

Emily Mills: And now they get to place themselves as the great defenders of the Jewish people. They know what the definition of anti-Semitism is. What they’re doing is trying to find a way to pass more anti-free-speech laws, anti-protest laws, anything they could do to crack down and make it more oppressive to fight back against their agendas, which are ultimately their own ethno-nationalist, fascist agendas. Which is probably why they see a familiar face in the current Israeli government. That shit pisses me off, and the fact that they’re getting away with that narrative in so many places.

Christina Lieffring: The sad thing is that the flattening of these conflicts and the flattening of these identities directly contributed to the anti-Semitic chalk graffiti that we saw [on May 4] at the [Dane County] Farmers’ Market. There were also anti-Islamic [flyers]. So, people are making this about religion and identity, when the only component of [the conflict] that has anything to do with religion is that some people within this group think that they have a divine right to this area. And there’s a whole bunch of people who subscribe to the same faith who do not share that view.

Emily Mills: Shady, bigoted, chalk drawings or graffiti: no good. Find out who did it. It’s also a small, small minority. It’s probably like a couple of people. The thing I hate is it feels like those of us, especially on the left who are anti-war, anti-genocide, anti-police violence, anti-racism, are being held to this insanely high standard of purity and perfection. Sometimes from within the movement itself, but often from bad-faith actors. That one misstep, one person who is a shithead, one person who’s a bigot means the entire movement is no good.

Christina Lieffring: Like that guy who came up and did the Hitler salute. He wasn’t part of it. 

Emily Mills: He was some guy who wandered in with them. But [media and the right] are like “this represents the entire protest.” Whereas you will find many media narratives and the politicians bending over backwards to excuse all the many bad actors at their right-wing shit. The actual neo-Nazis marching around with torches.

Christina Lieffring: It’s really frustrating, because it feels like we never learn anything. It’s also really frustrating because this generation of adults were young people during the Vietnam protests. Or they were young people during the protests for divestment against apartheid [in South Africa]. They have lived experience of student protests. And those protests were vindicated: Vietnam was a stupid war that we should not have been involved in. We should have divested from South Africa long before we did. Those protesters were right. And the people who lived through that, and participated, and then saw that vindicated, are still using the same playbook against this generation of protesters. It is so frustrating the way that this country just refuses to learn, and refuses to have real conversations about what is actually happening, about the nuance and the complexity of who all is involved, and what they want.

Emily Mills: I do feel you, 100%. I’ve been fortunate to see and witness that there are communities, groups, and people who are really trying to learn. And intergenerational efforts, where these conversations are happening with nuance. In particular, in minoritized, communities, where they’re talking, like BIPOC or LGBTQ, it’s more common. We live and breathe these more radical politics, because we’ve been targeted for so long. We’ve been really in the trenches and [are] usually at the forefront of these fights. And not to say everybody within these communities is super right-on about it, but it happens a lot more. The knowledge is there. But in the mainstream in terms of who dominates media, who dominates politics, still, who has the most money in this country, [they are] predominantly white, Christian folks, really good at putting their heads in the sand and, yeah, never learning the lessons

And there’s plenty of people from that generation who think Vietnam was a great idea and still love Nixon, and probably would support apartheid South Africa. Those people exist there. But I’ve definitely run into those folks—where, I’ve had to shake cans of pennies in front of a few faces of people that I know and love—who were Vietnam-era college students really agitating for the right things, who’ve turned around and become like, “Wow, these damn kids.” And I’m like, “Hold on. Stop for a second and think about what you’re saying. Is it because it’s not the exact same tactic that you would take? Or do you actually support their cause? You want to think about what they’re dealing with now? Do you understand what the landscape is like now for people who are students? Economically, socially, like how different it is from when you were that age? You want to take some time to actually have some conversations and meet people and listen to them and listen to what their issues are, listen to what their concerns are, and actually internalize that?” I think some people do, and some people are very committed to thinking that they solved all the problems that we had in the ‘60s and ‘70s. They’re very self righteous about it. We’ve got a lot of those folks in Madison.

Christina Lieffring: Like the right-wingers who refuse to learn, I just… You know, someone else can figure out how to get through to them. I don’t know how. But the ones that drive me crazy are the people who claim to be leftist, but think that their generation was the exception. That they somehow got it, and then the next generations are wrong. They don’t recognize that, because now that they have bought into the status quo. That is why these movements are now suddenly threatening to them. The thing about students is that they don’t have a stake in the status quo. In many ways, they see very clearly the ways that it doesn’t serve them.

Emily Mills: I think it’s faster than it’s been in a long time. I think even people a few generations removed from college, too, the last 20 or 30 years, can’t buy into the status quo, even if you want to in many cases. So it’s radicalizing more and more people. I have no idea if there’s going to be Social Security by the time I retire. I’m in a triple-income household and we can’t afford a home. I have student loan debt from 20 years ago that I am still paying off, and it’s a good chunk of my paycheck. If something goes really wrong with my health care, I’m on the razor’s edge. Then for kids now, but especially for younger kids, look at the climate and look at all the shit that’s already going wrong with the climate and the environment and not knowing if there’s going to be a world for them to live in. And they’re the ones left to clean up the mess. Like, I’m pissed. I’d be even more pissed if I was 20 years younger.

Christina Lieffring: I heard a really good comment from a podcaster, who said that Gen Z has grown up knowing that they are going to have to fight if they want a future.

Emily Mills: And they were taught how to barricade their damn school rooms from an early age. They know how to build a barricade.

Christina Lieffring: They know that there’s no point in taking any crap from a job because they’re going to lay you off in a couple of months anyway.

Emily Mills: Yeah, just a very different world. And I think that’s a big disconnect for folks who are a bit older. If you’re not intentionally trying to stay in touch with people who are in a younger generation, it can be pretty easy to not understand.

Christina Lieffring: I get very, very tired of people who are dismissive of young people. Because it’s a profound lack of imagination and a profound lack of empathy. Even with just the handful of sentences that you and I have traded back and forth about the reality of Gen Z —we’re not Gen Z whisperers. I don’t have a special in with Gen Z. I just have the capacity to think about what their lived experience has been and their perspective about the future. And based on that, I have empathy for the way they see the world and why they behave the way they do.

Emily Mills: I don’t want to have these age fights anymore. I want anybody at any generation to fucking do better and to actually talk to each other, and listen to each other and have respect for each other, and what different experiences and perspectives everybody brings to the table. Because, look: I don’t have the same energy, I sure as shit don’t have the same cartilage in my knees that I used to. We need younger folks who’ve got those things to carry the banners and run. You also need people who can be lighthouses—who maybe can’t do the running and everything, but can be these sources of knowledge and comfort and support as well. We all have something to offer and I want everybody to calm down and talk to each other.

Christina Lieffring: It’s the value of lived knowledge. There’s a big difference between reading about Occupy and knowing what it was like to be a young person who had just gotten out of college, was trying to find a job, and the economy crashed. In that context, Occupy made perfect sense. 

Last thoughts

Emily Mills: There’s so many people involved in these movements who are coming at it from places where they’re dealing with their own hurts and their own traumas, or they are being hurt and traumatized from the powers that be while they do this. Those are real things that we need support, grace, and patience for. Unfortunately, [it] can also lead to a lot of lashing out at each other because we’re the convenient targets for each other—people at our own power level, or even down-power from us, right? We have a bad habit of doing that. Especially white folks in movements, or for too long, even the white gays throwing trans folks and trans folks of color under the bus. And white women throwing black women under the bus. They think that they’re going to get ahead that way: “Well, we have to do us first, and then we’ll get to you.” That has literally never worked. When we tear each other apart for not being ideologically pure, or doing things exactly the right way, or the way that someone else thinks we should do, that’s how you just destroy things, and you don’t really get anywhere. And the people that actually are holding on to power are laughing all the way to the bank. 

Christina Lieffring: Right. At the end of the day, we’re just fighting over scraps. 

Emily Mills: We’re fighting over scraps. And I really want people to keep their eyes on the prize here. Yes, there’s room for disagreement and critique and criticism within the movements. 

Christina LIeffring: And growth. 

Emily Mills: Absolutely. There’s been a lot of it. We’ve learned a lot of lessons over the years. Especially the younger generations have done a good job of incorporating [those lessons]. Looking at this encampment, seeing this lovely interfaith, very queer-friendly, [group with] lots of people of color—and they’re leading—is so different from so many of the other Madison-based protests I’ve been a part of. That’s fantastic. And I hope when we’re doing these needed call-ins within, that we’re doing it with some amount of nuance and grace and patience, and keeping an eye on [the question] what is the real goal here? What are the real systems that we need to be fighting against? I really hope that that’s the lesson that comes out of this and that we can keep that in mind. Because it’s a marathon, not a sprint, unfortunately. I’m ultimately really heartened by everything that I saw happen. Not that it was perfect, but I feel energized for whatever comes next, and trying to find how I can plug in and help. I feel at least a little bit better than I did before all this happened. I think that’s worth something.

Christina Lieffring: I also don’t want to hear another goddamn word about our so-called progressive police department. Next person who busts out that phrase gets kicked in the shins.

Emily Mills: You’re going to have to go kick Paul Fanlund in the shins. I agree. I’m over it. They’re just really good at messaging, but they’re still a police force. They’re still the state’s violent enforcers in the end.

Christina Lieffring: Right. And at the end of the day, I care more about their actions. And we saw them. 

Authors

CHRISTINA LIEFFRING

Christina Lieffring is Tone Madison’s News and Politics Editor and author of the “Capitol Punishments” column, now on Substack. She is a free-wheelin’ freelancer and lifelong Midwesterner.

EMILY MILLS

Emily Mills is a writer, editor, musician, roller derby-er, and sometimes event producer. She is one half of the punk band Damsel Trash and won Madison’s Favorite Gadabout in Isthmus’ 2014 reader poll—NO BIG DEAL. Emily lives in Madison with her partners and two tiny dogs.