I am reasonably confident that dire warnings about strained race relations in Northampton will prove to be unfounded and, in hind sight, hyperbolic. It has been my observation that this line of reasoning is often rooted in political hysteria, though I hasten to add that I do not ascribe those motivations to you because, of course, I’m not a mind reader.
Let’s just forget about what does and does not make Tucker Carlson proud.
Ok, this take that the comments section does not reflect its subscriber base is simply ungrounded from reality, and that would be apparent to anyone who regularly reads the NY Times and the comment section. While the NY Times reporting is close to neutral, the comments on the NY Times website have a left-leaning bias.
You would have a better take if you said that the story was not objective and therefore biased the readers against Ms. Kanoute. But your take that it “could have been bots” made me laugh.
Citing anonymous/unsubstantiated/unverified comments to an NY Times article to argue that there is a race relations breakdown in one of the finest colleges in the US is what’s laughable.
Beyond claims of the “leftist leaning” bias of the NY Times’ comment section, is there anything else upon which to base such a cataclysmic view about Smith? I did find the Shaw GoFundMe page which indeed makes me grin (and then cry) for all sorts of reasons.
but it wouldn’t surprise me that he has a role that is lowest on the power hierarchy, and he was told expressly or he implicitly understood that it wasn’t his place to interact with students, faculty, guests, etc. He knew people weren’t supposed to be in that space, and maybe thought he would get in trouble if someone- anyone - was found there on his shift. And he would likewise get in trouble for actively handling it himself. He is stuck. Ergo the protocol.
That’s fair. My understanding (limited) is that the policy gave him a choice, and whenever there’s a choice there’s a responsibility to act reasonably. But maybe his supervisor told him, or the ‘understood’ meaning of that policy is such that, “you just call security … don’t ever talk to the students.” I mean, yeah, that’s plausible. Offensive and over the top, if you ask me, but plausible.
If that were a sanctioned Smith policy, then yes, I’d find fault with Smith while also completely understanding the student’s frustration.
Cate, you’re the first one to have noted that aspect of the janitor’s dilemma. Although my first thought on reading the details of the incident was that good judgment should have led him to accost the student himself rather than farm it out to the campus cop, I am no longer so sure. Would she have reacted any differently on being questioned by a janitor? Possibly, given that a uniform evokes a certain reaction. Was that the sole basis of her upsetness? Or would being questioned by anyone have upset her? It seems to me the janitor might have ended up in the crosshairs under either scenario, and we might be having this same debate about whether the incident was all about racism. But of course once events have come out of the bottle in a certain way they can’t be put back in to see if there’s a better way. We don’t know and will never know the answer to that question. Perhaps those on this board who are most exercised might tell us whether that change in the facts would make a difference in how they regard the incident, and, if so, why.
When you say race relations are “harmed” what do you mean?
Your earlier comments suggest (and I agree) that a matriculated student POC who is acting harmlessly is less likely to have the police called on them for nothing more then (using your term) appearing “worrisome” as a result of this incident.
I also think white folk (like me) might be a little more thoughtful, “tentative”, and introspective as you also in part imply.
Are you suggesting that the incident having resulted in the discomfort of white people and the mitigation of profiling of black people is a “harmful” result? That seems like a small price to pay for us white people if it avoids even one black kid from having to be singled out or far worse harmed in an unwarranted LE interaction.
I really should take my own advice. I’m sorry you were offended; it was not my intent. But I believe what I wrote … just as much as the poster who suggested the student simply roll with the punches believes this is all no big deal, which probably offends many POC.
You are assuming all POC automatically have the same take on this incident. That seems presumptuous , as if implying that all POC think alike. That is certainly not the case for any race of people.
I should have been more precise: probably offends many POC. That I’ll stand behind.
I am aware that no single race of people all think alike and would never assume anything so absurd. The right has really weaponized that particular line of thought, which I’m sure was not your intent.
Thanks. I’ve edited my post.
I don’t buy that argument. This is a decades long employee of SC, not some 21 year old unsure newbie. I find it unlikely a cafeteria employee with 35 years experience in the cafeteria is at the bottom of the totem pole. It simply doesn’t ring true.
Once again, there is a lot of effort being put into trying to defend the actions of the non-minority to somehow indemnify their actions. It reminds me of all the defenses of Chauvin.
If the supervisor had a standing policy of “call the police first and always” we would have heard about other incidents where Smith College employees called the police on other students. This Event has been scrutinized by reporters, law firms, the university, and more. Something like that would have been revealed.
Why is it so hard to accept that the two workers involved in singling out the student for police interaction came to that conclusion on their own and likely because of an original racial reason?
Well, this was analyzed quite carefully in the investigative report, in pages 31-33. To summarize, there were plenty of cases where the police were called (although we do not know if the caller approached the person first–the dispatchers are trained not to ask that). When the race of the person was reported, the vast majority were white.
Because there is no evidence of A) that Jackie Blair had anything at all to do with the call, and B) that the janitor made the call with a racial motive. That is conjecture on your part. The actual history of reporting at Smith shows no racial bias.
You jumped to a conclusion without all the facts, EconPop. I wonder if your conclusion regarding the janitor’s guilt (and apparently Jackie Blair) would have changed if you had read the report carefully.
I do wonder if Ms. Kanoute has any regrets about taking this to social media so quickly. There are many people that support her , but many others that don’t (in terms of this particular incident).
All this immediately comes up when googling, and it seems like a lot of baggage for a young person to carry.
There was an excerpt on page 9 of the report that seems to suggest the employee did have some latitude in how to respond. I agree that it appears more ambiguous in some of the later commentary, but this comment directly from the report is relatively specific.
“The Director of Building Services, who supervised the Caller the week of the Incident, said that employees may either approach unknown persons in areas they are not expected, or call the Campus Police.”
Pretty hard to imagine a policy that is absolute in either direction. For example, “You must confront” would of course be dangerous but similarly “out of place” is way to ambiguous to mandate police involvement. An employer can expect an employee to use a reasonable amount of common sense and latitude while offering employees resources in the event a situation escalates and requires it. This doesn’t obligate the employee to call in the cavalry universally.
That appears to have been in my reading Smith’s approach although they appeared to dance around it to avoid administration accountability.
Right, we are even seeing different opinions among POC on this very thread.
Where is the “throwing up hands in surrender” emoji? 
This is like a Groundhog Day merry-go-round. “The victim should feel remorse/regret/ashamed.” “The perpetrator should be vindicated/apologized to/made whole.” 195 posts later and the same talking points continue unresolved.
I’m glad some people have found some of the dialogue in this thread useful to greater understanding.
There is truth in “you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
There was an excerpt on page 9 of the report that seems to suggest the employee did have some latitude in how to respond.
Regardless of what the report said on this point, we know that, as a matter of course he did have discretion. This is why I asked the question (that went unanswered): is anyone here, or anywhere, willing to subscribe to the notion that Smith staff should call the police, no questions asked, if they ever see any person on a campus location in which they are not supposed to be? Context be damned, call the cops! Again, this is not a rhetorical question. If the (rather obvious) answer is “no,” then you HAVE to accept that even a lowly, underpaid, undereducated janitor has to have some agency and thus ability to make some common sense decisions in light of what is and is not known to him/her. Period.
The posters arguing in this thread feverishly cling to this policy argument (it’s Smiths fault!), which (offensively) suggests the janitor is not supposed to think … ever … and just call the cops. It’s hard to take this seriously. I’m sorry.
So, for example, when I was walking in a part of the campus center that had just been moped (this happened - missed the sign), nobody said anything because nobody saw me. If someone had seen me, would that person have been acting within reason to call the police? I myself don’t want to live among people who are so inept that they can’t rub two neurons together in their brain and exercise some pretty basic judgment that requires no IQ. It’s insulting to assume janitors can’t think.
So I agree with you. Pretty hard to imagine such a policy.
Here’s the relevant section from the investigative report. Will be interesting to see how everyone interprets it.
I feel like Michael Corleone in GF III.
I assume you didn’t mean to use the word “accost”. If you did, then of course she would have been upset. I would have as well. I don’t like to be accosted by anyone for any reason in any context ever. I don’t know anyone who does.
If what you meant was to ask whether we get the same result if the janitor just approaches her politely and informs her that she is in an unauthorized area, then I have to wonder why you ask. What on earth would make anyone believe she would have reacted as she did when confronted by the reality that Smith College called the police because she was having lunch in the wrong place? This line of discussion, which seems to have as its aim to cast the student as a hysterical and unreasonable person, is a red herring.
One of my hard-won nuggets of wisdom from life is that how someone perceives something is more important than what something actually is. Perception IS reality. A close tie is that most of the time what something actually is is impossible to determine anyway.
It is true in every step of this fact pattern, and in every post in this thread. The janitor reported because he perceived it as the best option for him under the protocol. Ms Kanoute was traumatized based on her perception of what happened to her. The administration had to cya because of its perception that what happened was not in the spirit of its protocol. Social media grabbed hold of the issue because it needed to call out the racism it perceived happened. People are outraged because they perceive the relative harms to people as not matching the consequences for people’s actions. All of those perceptions (and others) are the story. They are all true to the person who has them, and need to be approached as reality. What actually happened is unknowable and irrelevant.
So the key, seems to me, is managing the universe of perceptions at any stage in a story line like this. And some ability to shift perceptions to align with documented facts. Ergo, a sound protocol.
@econpop, I am weary of the merry go round too. And agree that there is no convincing. My final point is simply that I don’t know for sure what is in the heart and mind of the janitor, and as such feel it is a necessity to take his thinking out of the analysis. But I do think it is plausible that someone in his job survives 35 years by keeping his head down and not getting involved. One can argue that means not making the call and walking away, or making the call and letting someone else handle it. Either way, the call hurt someone. I don’t think the analysis is diminished by starting with “the call hurt someone”. Fix the call protocol. Fix the hurt. I don’t think you can fix the janitor’s mind, even assuming it needs fixing.