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THE FOOTHILLS FOCUS | THEFOOTHILLSFOCUS.COM | OCTOBER 6, 2021
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ASU student confrontation handled with euphemism BY J.D. HAYWORTH Foothills Focus Columnist
D
r. Michael Crow has completed almost two decades as president of Arizona State University. He spent a portion of that time co-authoring a book that encapsulates what could be considered his mission statement for the institution: “Designing the New American University.” But when a new controversy erupted on the Tempe campus and went viral via video on social media, Crow’s subordinates responded with old-fashioned euphemism. On Sept. 23 in Room 321 of the Student Success Center, two white male students
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were harassed by members of the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, which then posted a nearly eight-minute video of the confrontation that has since been taken down. (It remains available at other websites, though the graphic language contained therein is far from “quaint.”) One of the white students, Chase Beckerman, had a sticker on his computer that read “Police Lives Matter” and the other, who remains unidenti�ied, wore a t-shirt reading “Did Not Vote for Biden.” Two women of color, undergraduate Mastaani Qureshi and graduate student Sarra Tekola, appeared to take the lead in confronting the white men, demanding they leave Room 321. Perhaps the most revealing part of the
exchange comes when Beckerman, trying to strike a conciliatory tone, asked, “Is there anywhere I can go?” Teacola responded, “Yeah! The whole rest of the campus! The second �loor, the �irst �loor, the whole MU [Memorial Union] – every single part of the campus centers you! This is the only space that you’re not centered and you’re still trying to center yourself, which is peak cis-white male bulls***t! Beckerman then asserted, “I’m not racist, I’m just studying.” That assertion brings a hot-tempered response from Teacola: “You are racist! Your sticker is racist because police, that’s a job! You can choose to be police. I don’t
see HAYWORTH page 10
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