Ben Shapiro & The Little Rock Nine

Over 10 years ago I purchased and read the book "Warriors Don't Cry" by Melba Pattillo Beals.  Ms. Beals was one of the the nine students who volunteered to be the first African American students to attend the previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.  As I read her book, I was shocked at just how much danger she and her students were in, how they nearly lost their lives for the simple right to receive an equal educational opportunity.  To simply go to school and learn.  I was horrified as I read how the students had to face down mobs who wanted to lynch them, and how in the end President Eisenhower was forced to send in the 101st Airborne Division to once again, fight Fascism.  This time, instead of battling the Fascists on the beaches of Normandy, they were fighting them in the very heartland of America.  When I finished reading this book, I said to myself "Thank God those days in our country are long gone."  Boy was I wrong.  

Less than one year ago, I learned on the News that Conservative Jewish activist Ben Shapiro would be speaking at the University of Berkeley.  This was a University that I once admired.  Being a central part of the 1960's counterculture movement that I idolized, I actually thought that Berkeley, the University that founded the Free Speech movement, represented a beacon of hope, a place where Freedom of Thought would outshine the darkness of Fascism.  Now I see that the opposite is true.  When I watched the footage of Ben Shapiro speaking I was stunned to sea heavily armed National Guard troops on patrol.  I was shocked to learn that the City of Berkeley had to spend almost $600,000 just to ensure a man's right to speak in peace at the very university that once sounded the trumpet for Free Speech.  

When did this happen?  When did the very people who once vowed to fight Fascism become the very thing that they once sought to fight?  When did 2017 Berkeley become 1957 Little Rock?  The time has come for us to accept the truth.  Freedom of Speech is under a grave threat here in the United States.  Schools and Universities are no longer embracing Freedom of Thought.  Too many on the Left are becoming increasingly radical, and they are becoming the very thing that the claim to be trying to fight.  In their desire to rid the world of Fascism, too many on the Left are in truth becoming the very thing that the 101st Airborne fought in 1944 Normandy, and again in 1957 Little Rock.  For the sake of those courageous soldiers who faced down the Fascists on the beaches of Normandy & on the Streets of Little Rock, we must stand with Ben Shapiro.

Sources

Beals, Melba Pattillo.  Warriors Don't Cry.  New York: Simon Pulse, 1995.

"Ben Shapiro Speaks at UC Berkeley amid Protests."  YouTube Video: 4:35.  Published by  Fox News on September 15, 2017.  Accessed from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQEehWcwBc. 

Panzar, Javier, Benjamin Oreskes, & Teresea Watanabe.  "Unprecedented Measures at Berkeley for Conservative Writer's Speech."  Los Angeles Times.  September 14, 2017.  Accessed from  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-berkeley-protests-far-right-shapiro-20170914-htmlstory.html

Thanawala, Suhin.  "Multiple Arrests at Ben Shapiro Berkeley Protests."  USA Today.  September 15, 2017.  Accessed from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/09/15/ben-shapiro-berkeley-protest-arrests/669071001/