On Monday, hundreds of students, deans, and faculty members in Massachusetts participated in a planned Five College Mass Walk Out demonstration honoring Michael Brown. The event, hashtagged #HandsUpWalkOut, began at 1:01pm EST -- the time of Brown's death -- and ended with a 4.5 minute moment of silence, to represent the 4.5 hours Brown's body lay in the street. "White folks" were encouraged to keep their hands down during the protest.

That request was made the night before the demonstration by a white student posting to the event's public Facebook page. Susanna Holmstrom referenced a piece titled, On White People, Solidarity and (Not) Marching for Mike Brown, written by black activist FreeQuency who argues that white people have no business raising their hands because their white privilege protects them from police. Holmstrom writes:

Campus Reform quickly picked up on this story and was subsequently chastised for it. Student Melanie J. Wilkerson posted the Campus Reform story to the event's Facebook page and called writer, Yvonne Dean-Bailey, a "snake in the grass" for ignoring the "very real thing" that is "the systemic privileges that come with whiteness." Here is Wilerson's post:

Reactions to the above post included a still frame of a black woman rolling her eyes and another offering an alternate URL that would not link directly to the Campus Reform story so that it wouldn't "boost views/traffic" to their site.

Colleges weren't the only ones that participated in the nationwide #HandsUpWalkOut demonstrations on Monday. Twitchy reports that St. Louis area elementary, middle, and high schools also joined in. Pictures posted to Twitter show the young students yelling at white police officers and blocking roadways. Many parents were angry that school administrators didn't stop participation. Dana Loesch tweeted that one of the school's principals hung up on a parent who called to complain.