Ken Berwitz
Here\’s a little something I\’ll bet you didn\’t know about Jonathan Butler, the University of Missouri graduate student whose hunger strike was, at least in part, responsible for the President and Chancellor of the school to resign.
Do you think he\’s some poor downtrodden young Black man, who is engaged in some life struggle against oppression? If so, think again.
According to Joe Holleman\’s article in the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Butler, in actuality, is a privileged rich kid, whose father is an Executive Vice President of the Union Pacific Railroad – compensated to the tune of $8.4 million dollars just last year.
Does this mean Jonathan Butler was not sincere in his “hunger strike”? Does this mean he was just playing a rich boy\’s game so he could feel relevant….which would make him a possible object of derision to the players on U of M\’s football team, many of whom come from poor families … the kind some rich families, regardless of their color, look down on?
I don\’t know the answers to those questions. But I do know that hunger-striking to force the removal of someone who had absolutely nothing to do with the incidents you\’re hunger-striking over is ridiculous. And that only a beaten down, gutless man would allow it to happen.
I only hope for Jonathan Butler\’s sake that he does not take this “victory” to mean that, in the future, whether or not he decides to have a meal is going to matter to anyone else. Because, if he does, young Mr. Butler is in for a double helping of reality.
