You aren’t a Jedi yet, young padawan…
If you had the equivalent status of the housemaster, then you wouldn’t have to rely on other people to pay for your room & board.
I wanted to edit to say that implies that I am inherently less, It seems kind of an awkward turn of phrase. I know I have personal bias but it seems strange to say. I would not be comfortable calling someone else that or even having someone else call me that.
I am yet a padawan 
Here’s the thing: if we remove names and titles, we are essentially removing parts of our history as Americans. This distinctly correlates with the premise that we should remove the hyphen from one’s culture; we cannot simply “erase” words that are a integral part of both our history and ourselves.
Regardless of our actions now, slavery happened. It is an unfortunate part of America’s history, however, we cannot go back in time and change the fabric of America. Whether we like it or not, slavery was an extremely prevalent part of U.S. history, and the actions taken by influential figures (good or bad) have become rampant in every U.S.H textbook. Removing political figures names from buildings/structures/etc. (imo) is not a matter of taking away this “honor”–that this recognition provided–due to their actions, but rather, an attempt to erase what occurred in history before us.
I’d rather us focus on what we can do NOW to influence society towards equality; but if we remain adamant on arguing over small details, very little can be accomplished. As a society itself, we must look at the big picture. If we continue to attempt to erase words from our daily language due to its connotation over a century ago, where will it end? Language is a living and evolving aspect of humanity; it possesses the ability to grow with the times. The meaning of “master” then vastly differs from it now, just like the connotation of “swag” and “gay” differ from its meaning centuries ago . By no means does it mean we should delete them from our campuses and our language.
I think harvard should be bulldozed and a massive homeless shelter be built on the site.
all the coddled specials snowflakes can go home and get work as baristas .(the real world exposure to life will do them some good, more so than sitting around trying to figure out how to be offended at an expensive college)
Now on to the fight for the really important change, one which will set a generation of children back on the correct path…all the Harry Potter books need to be re-written. A whole generation of young minds has been polluted by this literally series because it glorifies the idea of ‘masters’ in a school environment.
Once this is accomplished…it’s obvious the Star Wars series needs a complete overhaul. Maybe an organized protest to stop the release of the upcoming new movie.
The Harvard (and other I-league) students have for generations endured tortured psyches are now mentally freed from this abuse They should be encouraged to lead the book burnings and movies cancellations so that others may experience this freedom also.
@zobroward I agree with you . I think we should bulldoze Harvard right after we bulldoze wallstreet. Then we could get rid of all the special snowflakes
Sorry, but I think the most relevant voice in this discussion is black students’. “House master” immediately conjures up thoughts of slavery, no matter what the technical history of the word is. No, we should not erase or hide our history, but is it so hard to believe that black students think this language is uncomfortably dated? In my life as an Indian, it doesn’t matter to me much either way what the title for these people is, and if you are white or any race other than black, that’s probably true for you too. That means that the /only/ way to garner the effect these names have on students who are still affected by the echoes of slavery and Jim Crow is to listen to them and not make assumptions on what it is like to live their lives. Given the protests sweeping the nation, I think their answer is pretty clear.
I don’t know why people think it is “coddling” to allow intelligent and motivated students to protest the issues they are passionate about. I sure hope my generation isn’t this bitter and cynical when we grow up.
Older people tend to be more experienced and mature than 18 year olds. The generation of the '60’s was going to make the world a wonderful, peaceful place. It didn’t work and now we have kids telling us that we made all the problems that they will solve readily…yeah right.
“House massa”, definitely
“Housemaster”, no
Good for you that you don’t immediately associate “Master” with slavery… but I would not be surprised that a large majority of Black students have a different association than you… and since it is no harm to anyone to change the title to something more neutral, then what is the problem? Oh, right… it is a huuuuuuuuuuuuge imposition and an insult to “tradition” ™.
So… it is okay for you to be offended by a simple change in word, but not okay for others to be bothered by the same word? Sorry, but if it is a choice between not offending more privileged folk by changing some irrelevant tradition vs. the concerns of underrepresented groups, I’m going to side with the underrepresented groups.
The house masters THEMSELVES want to change their name. What is the problem? They shouldnt be allowed to change their name? The posters change their logo routinely and that is okay on this site
I have a child in an American boarding school right now. All the dorms have housemasters. The head of the school is the Headmaster.
I mentioned this issue to DC, so he asked his African-American housemates about this. They just laughed at the stupidity of it.
Not everyone has a chip on their shoulder and is looking for any miniscule offense to exploit for political advantage.
It is minuscule, stupid, minor… etc., etc… and yet more privileged folks are going apoplectic that it might be changed.
And so what if your child’s African-American housemates have no problem with the word… is that supposed to cancel out all the other students of color? [And yup… I’m sure boarding school students are so very representative… LOL]
I asked my black roommate about it, and he thinks it’s stupid as well
The Brits spread this term far and wide. Pretty much all boarding schools in India have house masters. High school principal equivalents are called head masters.
Just wanted to point out that someone here is copying comments from this thread and pasting them into the comments sections of the online edition of The Crimson.
I’m under no illusion that anything said in this thread is private (of course not), but just wanted to alert folks who may not be aware. The person who is doing this has a disqus profile with the avatar of a sign saying “One Big Ass Mistake, America” [OBAMA], so we are dealing with a right-wing troglodyte.
Why are people fussing about a group of people wanting to change their name. SO WHAT? They want it changed! And equally so, though I am black African and not black American, I relate to such problems. If Black students at Harvard feel that they haven’t been integrated into Harvard and the “masters” feel that this is their way to help in that process, then why not? I guess it’s very easy to point to people and say they are destroying history or whatever has been said when it really was a period of history where your people weren’t the ones oppressed for hundreds of years and you don’t have to carry that burden.
the average boarding school in the US charges around 60k per year, Boarding schools lack significant diversity. The ratio of blacks and hispanics in boarding schools is about one third of what it is in the general population. No wonder people at boarding schools think nothing of words that could be offensive to minorities. Not very many people go to boarding schools except alot of the kids of the very wealthy
You have no idea how completely IGNORANT you sound on the topic of boarding schools. These schools have huge endowments, generous FA, and a diverse student body-- they are like mini-Ivies. These schools are much more diverse than local public schools:
Example: Phillips Academy Andover
https://www.andover.edu/About/Pages/FastFacts.aspx
14% admit rate
45 states & 45 foreign countries represented
46% non-white
10% int’l
47% receiving financial aid; need-blind and meets full need
(families w less than $75 income go for free)
$1.012 billion endowment, as of june 2015
Andover & other elite boarding schools have partnerships with outreach organizations like Prep-for-Prep that identify, develop and match poor kids with elite boarding schools.
http://www.prepforprep.org/podium/default.aspx?t=126418
My son’s roommate last year was one of these outreach kids.
Although I find the demands of the narcissistic and self-absorbed youth embarrassing and shameful, I am also shocked and dismayed by the adults and the alumni (of which I am one). The decision is highly anti-intellectual and is can easily turn into a slippery slope where anyone who feels offended can have some word or book or movie or work of art banned. This is youth facism. How are these children going to grow up and become scientists and researchers and historians and politicians. How are they going to defend the poor, change the world, deal with messy complex and often contradictory information? The world is not black and white and the adults should be having a dialogue with them about why this is the STUPIDEST demand and they are making themselves look ridiculous.
Meanwhile DAESH wants to see Western thought and ideas exterminated and climate change is on the edge of making our planet one difficult place to live on. We are supposed to be training our youth to take over and deal with these types of problems but instead are caving in to their irrational demands. I am sick to my stomach over this.