Oberlin Hate Crimes Were Hoaxes

[sally305]

<p>Sorry, Consolation. It made the news and happened recently. I haven’t read of any other colleges that have recently had this problem. My purpose in posting the story here was to communicate that these things really do happen on college campuses even if the Oberlin case happened to be a hoax.</p>

[Consolation]

<p>Yes, but the ill-advised party was not a “hate crime,” was it? Nor did it have anything to do with homophobia or sexism. Frankly, I doubt that the <em>intent</em> was racist. People of all races belong to gangs. Those two are just well known, and known for their enmity and their colors (blue and red, I believe). If they had a Hell’s Angels party, would that be racist, sexist, and homophobic?</p>

[sally305]

<p>Not everyone who is racist, homophobic or sexist is likely to commit a hate crime, but hate crimes are always committed by people who, well, hate. And hate often starts as insensitivity, resentment, fear or other emotions about people or groups who are “other.”</p>

<p>I know you have loyalties to Dartmouth but I don’t understand why you aren’t appalled that the Greek system is (and for decades, has been) casting the college in such a negative light and putting it in the news. Yes, those two students who wrote the opinion piece you cited have had a positive experience there. But many others have not, and they haven’t felt comfortable speaking up.</p>

<p>

Other students expressed private outrage at yet another racially tinged instance in a long pattern of questionable judgment calls made by students in Dartmouth’s Greek culture.</p>

<p>Many were afraid to comment without anonymity…</p>

<p>“If you challenge the college in any way you get a huge backlash from your peers,” said the student, who grew up in a gang-heavy neighborhood.

</p>

[sosomenza]

<p>

Someone engaged in behavior that they presumably knew would be disproportionately disruptive and terrifying to members of certain minority groups because they thought it would fun. Placing your own desire for “fun” over the need for students of color, and religious minorities to feel safe on campus is a classic example of racism. To argue “it wasn’t racism, it was a joke” just shows the depth of dominant culture privilege.

</p>

<p>…Yep!</p>

[Sikorsky]

<p>

@sally305

Looks like more and more people are getting paid by the post to initiate politics-baiting on this site.

</p>

<p>This.</p>

<p>And also this:</p>

<p>

@CuriousJane

I’m having a little bit of trouble with this definition of “hoax”.</p>

<p>Someone engaged in behavior that they presumably knew would be disproportionately disruptive and terrifying to members of certain minority groups because they thought it would fun. Placing your own desire for “fun” over the need for students of color, and religious minorities to feel safe on campus is a classic example of racism. To argue “it wasn’t racism, it was a joke” just shows the depth of dominant culture privilege.</p>

<p>It may have been a “hoax” in that they were pretending to be members of a specific organization, but they certainly weren’t pretending to be racist when they committed those acts.</p>

<p>I’m glad they were removed from the college.

</p>

[Consolation]

<p>I also agreed with CuriousJane. It is difficult to see what makes this a “hoax.”</p>

<p>Sally, I find what I know of AD generally distasteful. But I also have a far more balanced view of Dartmouth’s Greek houses than you do.</p>

[dietz199]

<p>

Quote:
Someone engaged in behavior that they presumably knew would be disproportionately disruptive and terrifying to members of certain minority groups because they thought it would fun. Placing your own desire for “fun” over the need for students of color, and religious minorities to feel safe on campus is a classic example of racism. To argue “it wasn’t racism, it was a joke” just shows the depth of dominant culture privilege.

</p>

<p>Who" presumes they knew"…how do you know that they thought past the ‘let’s party dude’ stage…it’s just as possible they were simply college students being self centered. That makes for lousy headlines however. But really, at some point turning everything into a racist homophobic etc battle cry just results in tired ears.</p>

[Sikorsky]

<p>…and denying that some actions can be bigoted, even if the actors thought them to be more innocuous, just creates more racists and homophobes.</p>

[busdriver11]

<p>I’m not sure what makes this a hoax. When you are trying to harass and scare people, that’s not a hoax, no matter who you pretend you are. Maybe their goal was dual purpose, to both terrify people and blame it on others. This doesn’t sound like a hoax, this sounds like some creepy bullies.</p>

[Consolation]

<p>Exactly, busdriver.</p>

[Gator88NE]

<p>Hoax= a humorous or malicious deception</p>

<p>It’s a malicious deception because a hate group was NOT operating on campus, sharing their beliefs. People feared for their safety, not knowing it was a “hoax”. </p>

<p>Instead two fairly liberal students thought it would be “funny” to fake actions a real hate group would do.</p>

[sally305]

<p>So what category would this fall into?</p>

<p>[Minority</a> Students At University of Texas Attacked By An Epidemic Of ‘Bleach Bombs’ | ThinkProgress](<a href=“http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/24/2523051/minority-students-university-texas-attacked-epidemic-bleach-bombs/]Minority”>http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/24/2523051/minority-students-university-texas-attacked-epidemic-bleach-bombs/)</p>

[lvvcsf]

<p>One of the problems with the fraud that went on at Oberlin, Duke (lacrosse team) is that it makes those whose minds you attempting to change cynical. The article posted by Sally (if it is accurate-there you go) should bring pause to minority students and compel others to abhor such action. Events like those at Oberlin are likely to to have many take the article much less seriously and prevent change rather than encourage it.</p>

[Gator88NE]

<p>@Sally305; That would be assault, and since it’s targeting blacks and Asians, then it’s likely a hate crime. </p>

<p>There is no deception in throwing bleach filled balloons at people.</p>

[Consolation]

<p>I agree with gator: it is assault. No deception involved. Throwing bleach at someone is very dangerous.</p>

[cobrat]

<p>Here’s a statement released by the Oberlin College Communication Office on this matter:</p>

<p>[Oberlin</a> College Statement on Bias Incidents | News Center](<a href=“http://news.oberlin.edu/articles/oberlin-college-statement-bias-incidents/#.UhkT0-D3C_G]Oberlin”>http://news.oberlin.edu/articles/oberlin-college-statement-bias-incidents/#.UhkT0-D3C_G)</p>

<p>As for those discussing “intentions”, …my take is that intentions for actions don’t really matter in the adult world if the results of those actions are negative…especially in a severe sense. </p>

<p>A reason why one will be prosecuted for pulling stunts like yelling fire in a theater even if it was “intended” as a joke or have a “third degree” type visit from Secret Service if the President of the US or others covered under Secret Service protection is threatened…“even as a joke”. </p>

<p>Only time intentions do matter is in determining the severity of the penalties. However, they do not absolve the ones committing the actions with negative consequences from the responsibility for their acts and the associated consequences which come with them.</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>[How</a> Oberlin Created the Hate Crime of the Year
by Michelle Malkin
National Review Online
August 23, 2013](<a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356529/how-oberlin-created-hate-crime-year-michelle-malkin]How”>http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356529/how-oberlin-created-hate-crime-year-michelle-malkin)

Just as I suspected, “progressive” pranksters at Oberlin College have been definitively unmasked as the perpetrators of phony campus “hate crimes” that scored international headlines in March. The blabbermouth academic administrators who helped fuel the hysteria are now running for cover.

</p>

<p>Malkin graduated from Oberlin in 1992.</p>

[cobrat]

<p>Michelle Malkin has long been known as a polemic pundit with right-wing biases and is an alum most Obies would rather forget about. </p>

<p>Considering her longstanding contempt for our college and the above, that article needs to be taken with several supertankers worth of salt.</p>

<p>One possible explanation for her contempt is the strong possibility backed up by alums I’ve met from her era and before that Oberlin was a more radical-left progressive campus when she attended compared to my time there some years later…or moreso…the present time.</p>

[CuriousJane]

<p>

Who" presumes they knew"…how do you know that they thought past the ‘let’s party dude’ stage…it’s just as possible they were simply college students being self centered. That makes for lousy headlines however. But really, at some point turning everything into a racist homophobic etc battle cry just results in tired ears.

</p>

<p>You’re arguing that they were unaware that the KKK has the potential to scare African Americans?</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>She’s calling the perps “progressives?"<br>
She makes the big bucks for being her own sort of blabbermouth.
I don’t know how anyone can reasonably quote her here- except to rile folks up.</p>