Note: The following was my proposed commencement speech for the 2024 class of the “People’s School of Gaza” at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. For some reason, the “faculty” declined my invitation to speak—CLS
Good afternoon. Before I begin, if everyone could please deactivate your explosive vests, remove your keffiyehs and silence your cell phones until commencement exercises conclude, that would be appreciated.
Also a brief housekeeping note: If anyone knows who spilled red paint all over the Student Union men’s bathroom, please invite them to clean that shit up. This isn’t a daycare and none of you are toddlers. Allegedly.
Now let’s begin. Dear Class of 2024 of the People’s School of Gaza: Congratulations. You did it.
What you did beyond holding parts of the University of Tennessee campus hostage, screaming obscenities at Jewish students, and generally behaving like entitled brats, I’m not sure. But you damn sure accomplished those three things, which means you’re officially as bad as the children at Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Columbia.
Let’s go back to the beginning of May when a few of you who didn’t get enough love and attention as small tykes started this “exercise in free speech.” For the alleged “benefit” of people half a world away who don’t give a damn about you or what you think you stand for, the lot of you thought it was a great idea to make your fellow students at UT’s lives hell.
So you stomped your feet. Chanted slogans like “From the River to the Sea,” “We want 48, Not No Two State,” and “Death to America.” You made your little signs, waved Hamas flags and donned keffiyehs because someone online told you it was a great way to stand against “Colonization” and “Imperial Zionism” or some such nonsense. Harassed Jewish students on campus who had jack all to do with this mess.
Are you really still surprised the lot of you got arrested?
Things really got ridiculous last week when you tried to take over the College of Law’s lawn for your little “Nakba” vigil—an event if any of you’d bothered to do ten seconds of research commemorated the mass slaughter of Israeli Jews. As do most “holidays” Hamas celebrates. But no, you wanted to have another reason to throw a tantrum and demand you get your way.
So you celebrated the slaughter of Jews. Remember that.
When the College of Law’s Dean came to let you know you’d repeatedly violated the University’s time, place and manner restrictions with your tantrums and you’d be arrested for trespassing if you didn’t leave within ten minutes, you questioned why the university you “pay money to attend” would have you arrested.
And then the cops showed up and arrested most of you. I’ll add they only did so after giving you one more chance to leave the College of Law’s lawn. When they slapped the cuffs on you, none of you even had the balls to take it like adults. No, you whined and moaned about how your “rights to free speech were being silenced” and how “this can’t be what America looks like.”
Let’s see what lessons we can learn from our time at the “People’s School.”
First, the right to free speech doesn’t mean people have to put up with your shit.
You’re free to speak your mind on college campuses. No one has to listen. I know this is hard for all of you who’ve been inculcated with this asinine notion everything you say is important and the center of the universe, but it’s a correct statement.
People are going to let you speak because that’s what we do in America. Don’t be surprised when they ignore you completely because most of the time that’s what the lot of you deserve if someone’s in a good mood. What you might get in return, if someone’s having a bad day, is what we call the “free marketplace of ideas.”
Since most of you are incapable of understanding subtext, let me spell it out: Graciously, we might ignore you. If we’re not being gracious, we might take the time to chastise you for being a complete tool.
Second, if you choose to protest, you better be prepared to suffer the consequences. When the civil rights protests of the 60s happened, those who protested knew damn well they could be arrested for what they did. They still chose to do it because they knew doing the right thing was more important than appearances or social media clout.
You were more concerned with what it was going to do to your mother and father’s opinions when they saw your mugshot. By the way, go thank your parents for putting up with your shit. They’re the ones paying for you to attend UT and have your little tantrums. Not you.
For fuck’s sakes, you got Yassin arrested! Yassin from Yassin’s Falafel House! Think abut this! Your actions got the guy both the FBI and USA Today named the “nicest guy in America” arrested! And he’s the only one prepared to not bitch about it.
Finally, your tantrums don’t matter. They never will. The adults watching your nonsense—the real adults who owe you nothing, understand you’re owed nothing and don’t give a fuck about you—see what you’re doing and we know it’s nothing more than you attempting to make something meaningful out of your miserable, entitled existences.
By hating Jews, no less.
Now it’s time to graduate into the real world. Please take the dunce caps from underneath your seats, don them, find a corner to go sit in and think about what you’ve done until someone tells you to stop.
And one more thing: Am Yisrael Chai, dipshits.