Wow, mifune, blast for the wordy past. Where did you ultimately wind up after transferring from H? Are you working now?
If you are black, any aspect of any black culture is yours to share and use?
A PhD immigrant from Zambia has anything meaningful in common, culturally, with Mr. 50 Cent (aka Curtis James Jackson III)?:
[quote]
Jackson was born and raised in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York City. He was raised by his mother, Sabrina, who gave birth to him when she was fifteen. A cocaine dealer, Sabrina raised Jackson until she was murdered when Jackson was eight. She lost consciousness after an unknown assailant drugged her drink; the assailant then turned on the gas and closed the windows of her apartment. After his mother’s death, Jackson moved into his grandparents’ house with his eight aunts and uncles.The rapper recalled, “My grandmother told me, ‘Your mother’s not coming home. She’s not gonna come back to pick you up. You’re gonna stay with us now.’ That’s when I started adjusting to the streets a little bit.”/quote
That is very sad for 50 cent but makes it no less offensive to fat people. To his credit (at least to my knowledge) he has never pretended that people would not be offended by free speech.
What is “black culture”? Is it one monolithic thing? Is it Motown or 50 cent? (God, please let it be Motown, back in the day when singers had talent and musicality)
For that matter, what’s “white culture”? Honey Boo Boo and I are both white but we have nothing in common.
And this really trivializes the Cultural Revolution which members of my own family experienced and it’s not remotely the same thing.
I’ll reconsider when campus protesters are actually armed and actually have the backing of the national/state/local government, law enforcement, FBI, military, and the prosecution courts with far greater powers to summarily sentence someone than exists currently.
Until then, talk about another genuine case of “Godwinning”.
Also, I find it a bit hypocritical of Dershowitz using the word Fascism in his article when in this very editorial, he’s reportedly being criticized for the use of militarily driven collective punishment tactics often associated with Fascist powers during WWII:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/3/18/dershowitz-editorial-draws-fire-an-article/
Unless this is sarc, or even if it isn’t, Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor:
“Iran is a threat but can we say that it will make a second Auschwitz? I don’t compare anything to the Holocaust. Only Auschwitz was Auschwitz.”
And Wielsel is a big opponent of the Iran deal.
What about a Motown hit sung by the Queen of Soul but written by a white Jewish woman (Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”, written by Carole King)? 
Aretha Franklin was not a Motown artist.
And both Marylyn McCoo and the 5th Dimension sang Laura Nyro’s “wedding Bell Blues”. And the beat goes on…
@Pizzagirl : Before you get too enthusiastic about using 50 Cent to epitomize “bad” black culture, you should read this profile of him by a bona fide Harvardian: http://www.gq.com/story/50-cent.
There was a fake twitter account at https://twitter.com/AmherstUprising (the real one is at https://twitter.com/UprisingAmherst ). The fake account has been suspended by Twitter now but not before this and similar nonsense was widely reported to be legitimate.
@OHMomof2 thanks for the alert! No wonder the twitter account seemed so over the top. However the real group did demand that those students putting up “all lives matter” posters be alerted “that Student Affairs may require them to go through the Disciplinary Process if a formal complaint is filed, and that they will be required to attend extensive training for racial and cultural competency.” It’s my understanding that those posting the “all lives matter” posters were part of a pro-life/anti-abortion group. Regardless of whether they were being insensitive, they had the same right as the Amherst Uprising group to promote their views.
The list of demands reads to me like everyone who presented a possible demand got theirs included. And that makes some sense, because who can or wants to be the one who says “no, your demand/concern is not right but yours is?”. I think the term “demand” is unfortunate, because it leaves little room for compromise (and yet the president seems to have found it anyway). The group seems happy with the president’s response, at least they posted her letter on their Twitter account with “thank you” and such.
From what I am hearing through my kid, most of what’s been going on has been the sharing of stories and experiences, a lot of general consciousness raising and all positive. I’ve enjoyed looking at the photos of kids in the library, all races represented, and LOTS of them.
Re: the fake account - I was shaking my head at a lot of it too. Then they posted a pic of a gathering at “the student union” to march to the football game and…it was Umass Amherst’s student union, not Amherst College’s. Rookie mistake 
That was last night, by this morning the fake account had been suspended.
Making demands and seemingly making a seemingly excessive list of demands is a standard negotiation tactic in many areas of life in the adult world. One example of this is lawsuits where plaintiffs and their attorneys will demand much more than they expect to get in order to get closer to what they want or better yet, slightly more than they expected from the final judgement/jury decision or if in mediation…from mediation negotiations.
Similarly, when I bargained for souvenirs in Mainland China, one NEVER pays the asking price or start from what one actually wants to pay.
If one’s the buyer, one always starts from a lower price point than one expects to pay in order to have more negotiation room so the final compromise gets one closest to what one actually wants or sometimes better yet, a bit more favorable than that.
Similarly, when negotiating buying stuff on CL, I always start with a somewhat lowballish offer to see how much the seller’s willing to compromise on the price. Managed to get many good deals doing precisely that…such as a pricey electric guitar for less than half the retail price from someone who needed cash to meet financial obligations.
@cobrat, I agree that making an excessive list of demands is a standard bargaining technique. But lawyers are also bound by ethical rules and no ethical lawyer would ask for something illegal just to give himself or herself something to back down from. Hopefully this becomes a teaching moment where protesters learn that freedom of speech applies to their opponents and/or competitors in the marketplace of ideas.It’s just alarming to see students at our most elite institutions asserting that kind of “demand.”
But what’s illegal about their demands when it applies to private colleges/institutions? Private institutions including colleges are not an arm of the government.
Like private sector firms and institutions, private colleges have more leeway to restrict students speech and free expression if the manner in which they are exercised undermines the primary mission and provision of a safe community environment in which to fulfill it…providing a safe educational environment inclusive of all students.
While some of those demands may be ill-considered and wrong to some or even many, the students making such demands also have the same free speech right to publicly make them.
Now whether the institution and its leaders can and should act on them is a completely separate discussion.
Good point about the fact that private colleges don’t have to provide the same free speech rights as public universities. But hopefully they will stand up for free speech anyway. Here’s a link to a statement posted on the CMC website today about the college’s “imperatives.” I think it strikes a very good balance. https://www.cmc.edu/news/president-chodosh-details-our-imperatives