A speech by right-wing, all-around bigot Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California–Berkeley on Wednesday was canceled after a large protest broke out on campus. Some protesters broke windows, appeared to throw rocks at police, and lit firecrackers that resulted in a fire in Sproul Plaza near the student union.
The university canceled the talk by the Breitbart professional provocateur who has carved out a niche among the racist, misogynist right. Yiannopoulos’ general worldview and noxious behavior were enough to get him banned from Twitter, buuuuut since there’s a market for mind-bending racism in America these days, he also managed to net a $250,000 book deal from Simon & Schuster. Yiannopoulos’ college talks are usually the subject of outrage and protests. At a recent, similar talk at the University of Washington a man was shot in the melee surround Yiannopoulos’ appearance.
On the Berkeley campus, police appeared to engage with some of the hundreds of protesters armed with homemade shields and ordered the protesters to disperse.
