Saturday, May 11, 2013

Rhetoric of the Porcelain Throne

Another semester has come and gone in Berkeley, rife with the standard talk of divestment and revolution. As ever, accompanying both is the anti-Semitism that has infested campus since long before my tenure began, and which will, thanks at least in part to the half-hearted efforts of the administration, continue to pervade Berkeley as long as there are people living there. This time around, the graffiti in question was found in the fourth floor men's room of Moffitt Library, adorning the walls of the first stall (in an unprecedented violation of the traditional, high-minded values of toilet wall poetry erudition and manners). The images have been posted below, so as to provide a permanent record of the issue - one stretching so far back that it's less an ongoing problem than simply the continual state of affairs.

 
The usual Nazi insignia...
 

 
...followed by an incorporation of Jews specifically into the artwork. Presumably Jews are either responsible for sticking the Government's proverbial penis into the mouth of "me & you," or else just standing by enjoying it.
 

 
A less subtle presentation of the author's thesis is presented here...
 

 
...followed by a case of poor pensmanship detracting from what would otherwise presumably have been a trenchant piece of political insight involving the Zionist power mill.



I hope that the students of UC Berkeley continue to be as hardened to this aggressive brand of hatred as I was when I attended the school, and that the administration will pause to reconsider before powering ahead anyway with the next wave of ads promoting my alma mater as a elysium of open-minded inclusion.