The View From Prospect Hill

Tufts janitors, their union members and students decided it would be a good idea to protest in the middle of Davis Square, blocking traffic the other day. Rather than make an impact on the people that might actually have some say in the resolve of their issue, they only seemed to anger people trying to get home, get to work, get somewhere.

In more ways than one, college students often tend to get their ideas of what “grassroots” organizations are all about from the good and bad of our country’s milestones and the protests that happened at that time. Some of the mentioned “images” from a bygone era can lead people to do seemingly silly things.

Don’t get us wrong, some of us are old enough to have been right in the middle of the anti-establishment, protest-happy late 60’s and early 70’s. The whole era was defined by television images of protests outside the White House or in front of a school bus in South Boston or maybe in front of some war memorial – these were powerful images of the day, and their visual impact is one that has carried with it both factual and fictional conceptions of how to get a message across in the public’s eye.

While we think the janitors should be paid a fair wage, no doubt, we wonder if it wouldn’t have been more direct and certainly more powerful for them to just not clean the college administrators toilets or leave their trash in their offices for a week. Angering motorists in the middle of an already traffic laden square, with little to no chance of making an impact on the intended decision-makers, was definitely not the smartest idea.

Then again, the old adage of “any press is good press” might work. Good luck with that, glad to help.