Yingjun Huang
Week 7
I was deeply moved by student activists who lead the Free Speech Movement in UC Berkeley after reading the article Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the way for campus activism. It might be strange to put it this way, but I admire their courage when standing up and fighting against the authority.
I’m from a country where we are discouraged to speak about politics or anything against the authority, otherwise, you’re going to vanish. After witnessed hundreds and thousands of accounts I followed on Chinese social platform disappeared, and 90% of VPNs we used daily for internet world outside went down, honestly speaking, I’m a bit jealous of students in the article who fought and gained what they wanted risking everything because I would have quit if I was there. I’m just a coward.
And people around me even complain that they don’t feel like having freedom of speech in America. I was like “wow you definitely have no idea”. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with them, but just imagine a person being trapped in a box of darkness for so long, that when one day the box unfolded, he was blinded by the everyday sunlight. I'm blinded, for now.
So for the conclusion: I read the article; I admired the courage of these activists; I thought of myself, and mourned for me and my compatriots; I’m too coward to do anything because I know one day I will be back in my country; I just want to survive the night.
True heroes at the top of the wave.
Question:
It’s hard to not read the article without your own emotion or substitution, so I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.
If I got to ask these student activists, I would like to ask: “How did it happen?”
“How to make the first step forward?”
References:
1. Robby Cohen.(1985) OAH Magazine of History. Vol.1. No.1. Teaching about the 60’s (Apr. 1985) pp16-18.
2. UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement at 50: Tuition protest planned [Digital image]. (2016) Retrieved November 5th, 2017 from http://beta.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-berkeley-50th-free-speech-movement-protest-20141202-story.html
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