“Love you Columbia,” wrote Jason Brockman, owner of Strange Donuts, “but we gotta keep it moving.”
“Effective immediately,” Brockman continued, “we are closing the como loco [Columbia location]. It’s been a lot of fun but there has been a correlation between the student population decline and our sales. We are planning some huge things for Strange and need the energy elsewhere.”
Provocatively, Brockman attached the notorious image of the raging communications professor Melissa Click to his Facebook post.
In a memorably absurd moment during the November 15 protest, Click shrieked on camera, “Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here.” She needed the muscle, presumably male, to help her block a student photographer from reporting on a public protest, not the kind of behavior one would expect from a J-School prof, let alone a feminist.
MU got rid of Click, but the imagery of the MU protests made a deep impression on the parents of future of MU students. Freshman enrollment for the fall 2017 semester is down a reported 35 percent from two years ago.
That said, the spirit of protest lives on. As Debra Heine reports in PJ Media, “Apparently, more than a few snowflakes were offended by [Brockman’s] post.” In that Brockman also owns a local taco store, he responded to the protest with a Mao-worthy self effacement. “It was never my intention to be inflammatory or offensive,” he said in his public apology.
Unfortunately, he was too late. Angry that anyone would dare question the wisdom of their protests, the local social justice warriors kept piling on.
Said one protestor according to Fox News, “It’s so awkward you’d try and correlate student protest/activism and marginalized students feeling threatened/unsafe with low sales. How tone deaf. Thanks for the apology, but it’s 24 hours too late. And as dozens of your new reviews point out, this isn’t the only time you all have missed the mark. BYE.”
Said another, “1. That post with Melissa Click was trash,” reads the posting. “2. Declining students isn’t the reason your sales dropped, but s—-y customer service and racism might be.” Power to the people!
