Right now, a Temple University student is in police custody for doing something based on the mean centered times we live in.
While I was engaged in my annual ritual of being reminded how old I am by watching the Grammy Awards, I got a text from a friend of mine who is part of Temple University’s alumni association.
The text included a story from the school’s newspaper, the Temple News. Back when I was a student at the university, the Temple News was always good for at least one protest because of something that they published. My personal favorite was the cartoon of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas dressed like the old Aunt Jemima logo following his “High Tech Lynching” rant during his confirmation hearings.
(Geez…I really am old…)
For once, the story was informative, not offensive.
Apparently, a group of students decided that they would harass a local business on the 1300 block of Cecil B. Moore Ave. by pretending to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Wearing shirts that said “ICE” and “Police” on them, they also tried to get into the Johnson/Hardwick dormitory on campus, which is when one of them got caught. That student is in custody on charges of imitating a federal official.
Because we live in a “pictures or it didn’t happen” culture, someone was, of course, filming this attempt at, well I don’t know what it was an attempt to do. I guess someone wanted to become Instagram or TikTok famous.
The Philadelphia Police Department has joined the investigation, which makes sense. The student, whose name wasn’t released, is on interim suspension.
Now, like most universities, Temple has an extensive contingent of international students. These folks have had to work really hard to get there not just from an academic standpoint, but also from a financial one. While many of these students come from economically well-off families, a bunch of them don’t.
In any case, they’re just there to do their work, get their degrees and live their lives. They want to make friends, have study groups and do the things that students who aren’t international students do while on a college campus.
But that’s probably going to be a lot harder in America The Cruel. ICE agents have been fanning out all over the city since Donald Trump’s inauguration. A car wash in North Philadelphia’s Juniata Park section was raided on Wednesday and the fear is palpable.
If you had told me that this would have happened on Temple University’s main campus during my time as a student there, I’d have looked at you like you were nuts. Part of the reason for that is the Temple News protests. We wouldn’t have tolerated people harassing fellow students because of where they came from.
But a few years ago, there was a Temple student who was trying to form a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of White People. Now, you’re probably looking at that and are thinking I’m making that up, but I’m not. They had business cards and everything.
(They also had a Black woman doing their marketing, but that’s another subject for another column.)
While they didn’t gain a lot of traction — Temple may have it’s issues, but it’s still one of the most diverse schools in Pennsylvania — that the folks who tried to do this felt empowered enough to try it was a function of the times.
So is this Imitation Of ICE.
This is probably not going to be the last time this happens because, let’s face it, Philadelphia had a pretty significant chunk of people pull the voting lever for President Donald Trump. And a big part of the reason they did that was because they bought his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
What’s sad is that the people who did this are probably going to wind up ruining their futures in service of a hateful prank.
But then again, I’ve always believed that hate makes you do stupid things.
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