by Bryan Kelly

SO IT’S COME to this: protesters from BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), the radical Trotskyite organization with a heart of gold, “bulldozing” through a barricade at a Board of Regents meeting at the University of Michigan to spout demands for better minority enrollment.

All the while, the Regents sit docile, ice tinkling in their water glasses, while protesters and police jockey in an ugly scrum mere feet away.

And intrepid journalists, smartphones in hand, filmed the whole thing.

Thank goodness for that. After all, video of the surging, desultory mob is absolutely must-see—particularly the finish, when the 30-second clock counts down and wrestler King Kong Bundy enters the ring to clean house. (Bundy, the eventual winner of the Royal Regent Rumble, will challenge U-M President Mark Schlissel for the Heavyweight Wrestling Title at Summerslam this June. Hail to the victor.)

Over the sound of panicked screams, grunts and the reading of Miranda rights, and ‘midst the hellish scrum of bodies, one can just make out one of the protesters’ signs: “UT-Austin 10% minority enrollment plan.”

Hold everything—10 percent? That’s the sum total of BAMN’s demands? Radical nothing. Why, 10 percent minority enrollment at the University of Michigan is a paltry figure, hardly worth being subdued with chokeholds and zip-tied over.

What amateur negotiators these agitators be. Haven’t they haggled at a flea market before? Learn the lesson the Iranians taught us: start negotiations at the extreme end of the stick, and let the weaker party play for the middle. Demand 10 percent white enrollment, at most, at the University of Michigan, and empower the minority to become the unquestioned majority. And when the administration tries to bargain down to a 50/50 split, stand up and leave, and take the doorknob with you.

How times have changed. In my student days, I wouldn’t even show up to a brawl at a Regents meeting with lead pipe in hand if my Trotskyite group wasn’t pulling for the University to convert to an all-black school.

An all-black school! Ah, that’s the ticket. He who is first shall be accepted last, and she who is underrepresented and the victim of social injustice shall be eagerly accepted first.

I pity the fools who claim fealty to BAMN. Not only does video of the mob all but prove that few of them have a future in professional wrestling, but it sounds like they’ve been brainwashed by their betters into believing 10% minority enrollment is the best U-M can do.

Ten percent! I gag on that number every time I read it. By Any Means Necessary, my leftist eye. More like By The Most Tepid And Non-Confrontational Methods Available (BTMTANCMA).

Blame the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, that racist, sexist, homophobic (but constitutional) state amendment that made preferential treatment of minorities unlawful among public entities.

The truth hurts. Like the eight protestors that were arrested at the meeting, the Regents’ hands are tied. As far as increasing minority enrollment goes, very few options are on the table, particularly now that the table is in five jagged pieces in the corner. What is the University supposed to do, break the law?

At the very least! Break the law, and a few chairs, while we’re at it. The idealists at BAMN have been patient, but their patience is at an end. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

“Everybody is sensitive to [this] issue,” Regent Andrea Fischer Newman was quoted as saying, “but today I wasn’t even sure what the issue was that was being protested because it wasn’t done in a way that allowed for some sort of discussion.”

The bald ignorance. Read our signs, Mrs. Newman! Or is your police barricade blocking the view?

The only way the balance will inch closer to the more progressive goal of 90 percent minority enrollment is for the University to go private—or to relocate. I suggest that Michigan open a satellite location in Detroit—where they always should have been located, if it weren’t for our racist forebears—or in the Dominican Republic. The baseball team would benefit immensely, as well. Failure to do so represents institutionalized racism of the lowest order.

I await the University’s response. I’ll be on the back porch, thumbing through “The Revolution Betrayed.”