Protestors Call ‘The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and The Rise of The BLM’ “Hate Speech”
By John McNamara
NEW BRITAIN – Dozens of Central CT State University (CCSU) students disrupted the showing of the controversial film The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and The Rise Of The BLM Thursday (March 2) at the University’s Student Center.
Turning Point CCSU (TPCCSU), a student organization formed in 2022, sponsored the film presentation in the student cafeteria. The Daily Wire film by Stamford, CT native Candace Owens, drew boisterous but peaceful protestors who comprised most of the audience.
Ten minutes into the 79-minute movie approximately 30 students walked onto the cafeteria stage in front of the screen with signs chanting “hey, hey, ho. ho racist movies have got to go”, “no place for hate” and “hate speech is not free speech.”
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CCSU officials quickly stepped in to allow the film to continue. Dr. Craig Wright, CCSU’s Vice President for Equity and Inclusion, urged the protestors to demonstrate without disrupting the movie. “I implore you. Please disperse,” he said. Several minutes later the large contingent of protestors relented and went outside in the student center courtyard continuing their chants. A smaller group of demonstrators stayed voicing objections and receiving gentle warnings from a public safety officer to stop or be removed. The film was stopped and re-started several times. The civil disobedience continued when a student took to the stage again and public safety officers handcuffed and removed him.
The continued interruptions caused the TPCCSU student organizers to stop the film before its conclusion, according to CCSU’s student newspaper, The Recorder.
History Professor Jay Bergman, the faculty advisor to TPCCSU, praised the group’s leaders “for having the courage to stand up” to show the movie that attributes the death of George Floyd to drug addiction, portrays Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, convicted of the murder of Floyd, as the victim and broadly denounces the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence that grew after Floyd’s death. Bergman said all students are free to express their views “but not free to prevent others from expressing theirs.”
The Owens film is “racist” and it “grossly misrepresents people and communities of color” in its depiction of the George Floyd murder and its aftermath, said Taina Manick, a social work major who helped organize the protest.
A Stamford, CT native and Pro-Trump Republican activist, Owens produced “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold” in 2022 in her progression from a “liberal” espousing anti-racist views prior to 2017 to being an ultra right celebrity and commentator, according to a biography in Wikipedia.
TPCCSU is affiliated with Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a national nonprofit organization founded in 2012 that claims to have organized 3,500 right wing student groups on campuses. Using the slogan “Big Government Sucks”, the well-financed TPUSA is funded by conservative foundations and Republican donors. Its young founder, Charlie Kirk, reportedly earns $300,000 a year from the charity and is an acolyte of Donald Trump, promoting the “The Maga Doctrine” and Republicans on social issues, anti-vax memes and rollbacks of voting rights. A recent Politifact fact check scorecard cited 80 percent of posts shared at TPUSA’s web site as partly or completely false but found the claim that the organization is “white nationalist” to be false. On campuses, Kirk and TPUSA created Professor Watchlist “to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” The website has been criticized for targeting faculty members of color in academia.
The CCSU Turning Points chapter with 10 members, according to TPUSA, describes itself as a student organization “that is looking to grow the conservative movement at Central Connecticut State University. Our mission is to promote fiscal responsibility, capitalism, free speech, and small governments through activism and meaningful dialogue on campus.” Last fall TPCCSU sponsored another controversial film on the transgender issue that also provoked protests, according to coverage by The Recorder.
