The Ithaca, New York chapter of Black Lives Matter held an anti-Trump protest last evening, with students and faculty from Cornell and Ithaca College in attendance.
Russell Rickford, a history professor at Cornell and a member of BLM, told the crowd that “This is not a time for mourning — this is a time for organizing.”
As previously chronicled by The College Fix, Rickford believes the US government engages in genocide against blacks, and that the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is a “tool of the far-right imperialists to appease people.”
The professor said Tuesday’s election “was a victory for racism, xenophobia and misogyny,” according to The Cornell Daily Sun.
“Today, we’re facing an intensified form of white supremacy — we call it ‘Trumpism,’” he said.
Rickford endorsed a general strike of “black professionals, artists and academics” — a “grassroots uprising to counter the one Trump rode to the White House.”
While Trump’s election jeopardizes the progress made under the Obama administration for people of color, Rickford said Trump’s victory has the potential to be America’s “great awakening,” a wake-up call for white Americans who thought of their country as progressive.
“Last night, we got a rude awakening,” he said. “And once you’re awake, you can’t go back to sleep. You can’t pretend. You can’t accept the same lies.”
Rickford explained that the grassroots movement would begin on the local level, calling for a minimum wage increase in Tompkins County, increased funding for local schools and demilitarization of Ithaca’s police force, including the removal of Ithaca’s SWAT truck. …
In addition to Rickford, students from both schools voiced their complaints about Trump’s election.
“It’s been really hard,” said Thea Kozakis, who’s now inquiring about getting Italian citizenship. “[Trump] doesn’t believe in climate change, and I’m a scientist who studies the atmospheres of planets.”
Delmar Fears added that “This morning, my bubble was burst. The silent majority has spoken, and you know what it told me? That America is not a loving country.”
MORE: Cornell area BLM rally: US engaged in ‘genocide’ against blacks, capitalism must go
MORE: At Dartmouth, conservative students barred from campus MLK meeting
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