The Riots Are Part of the Plan
28th July 2024
When I entered Cornell University in 1964, I could not have imagined that given the thousands of future doctors, lawyers, scholars, engineers, architects, and executives in my class, the person destined to have possibly the greatest influence on America’s future would not be one of them. Instead, that role may have been achieved by a fellow member of Cornell’s debate association, a tall, loudmouthed Brooklynite who proudly bore the cognomen Rick “The Pr*ck” Mann.
Mann soon achieved a local notoriety when he and his partner/sidekick, chosen to represent Cornell at the prestigious Georgetown University debate tournament, stood up to issue a loud “Boo!” when the dinner speaker, a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee, was announced. For their misbehavior, Mann and partner were dismissed from the association, and I never encountered (nor expected to hear of) them again. Imagine my surprise, then, in 2020, when Patrisse Cullors, cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement, which organized violent riots in many American cities following the George Floyd killing, described herself as a “trained Marxist” thanks to the tutelage of Mr. Mann.