Oh, really? The world is a big place…
Oh please. Is there a reliable report of actual open white to minority racism on or near Oberlin’s campus in the last several years that I don’t know about? Could you even conceive of being a fundamentalist wedding photographer in a place like Oberlin? They would flay someone alive for saying they objected to participating in a gay wedding.
You wrote “virtually no one in today’s world is open about their racism and homophobia”. The city of Oberlin and Oberlin College are not the world.
@Ohiodad51, don’t agree that “virtually no one” is expressing racism and homophobia in today’s world, but I’m going to steal your line on being “micro-aggressed by the General Tsao’s chicken.” That’s darned funny. My soon-to-be-freshman is being raised in the developing world, and he considers himself progressive, but he’s rather worried that if his classmates feel micro-aggressed by their cafeteria offerings, his head will explode. Around here people don’t worry much about micro-aggressive dinners.
We talk a lot about how he can (hopefully) respond in a thoughtful and nuanced way to stuff like that, and recognize that those kids basically share his concerns but are just expressing it … um, differently. Unfortunately, he’ll probably end up responding as befits his age – in an overblown, black-and-white way – and then, who knows, maybe he’ll end up being accused of a “micro-aggression.”
And so the world turns. Hey hey, ho ho, General Tsao’s got to go …
Okay, I go to university in San Francisco. You want the nutty breed of progressives, we have them in spades (I’m pretty lefty myself, but we got some serious crazies here). I have never seen any significant portion of the student body actually complain about cultural appropriation via Americanized or fusion cuisine. I’m starting to question how common a thing it actually is.
I wish I lived in your world.
In my world, not only are people openly racist and homophobic, but they garner enough votes to be elected into office.
As I say in every thread like this… it’s a bunch of BS done by a handful of students but made to look common thanks to the media and non-college age, media-consuming population who feel the need to complain about the “youth of today.”
It’s simply a 21st century version of older adults griping around the card table about “KIDS THESE DAYS!”
@Ohiodad51
As long as Donald Trump leads the republican field, the case can be made that open racism is not only tolerated, it’s rewarded by some.
Wow, Oberlin sure has been in the press a lot these days. As an Oberlin graduate - I was vilified on campus for being a moderate conservative - I must say that I don’t like to see such scorn heaped on a great undergraduate school.
It’s a cheap shot to magnify the silly actions of a few in the social media. These kids are young and beginning to interact with the world. Let them and lay off the immediate judgments, folks. The world will take care of a lot of that and we all know it.
@massmomm That was a joke…but I guess that just leaves China.
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How did they think their demands would be funded?
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These kids probably look at a school’s endowment and just think that can be directly spent. They probably have no clue about sound endowment spending policies.
@MomOnALaptop “he’s rather worried that if his classmates feel micro-aggressed by their cafeteria offerings, his head will explode.”
I loved this! It made my morning.
My junior daughter is very keen on Oberlin so we have been following news on Oberlin with some interest. My impression is that there are small vocal minorities at Oberlin that get press attention and there are many other kids that fall at various points of the spectrum of liberalism to radicalism, and a very few right-leaning students. Given that I’ve read on this forum that Cornell wants to abolish the non-inclusive mistletoe and that students at Yale were petitioning to repeal the first amendment in an effort to keep hurtful speech at bay and got up in arms about the political correctness of Halloween, the actions of these Oberlin students do not seem unusual to me.
I read their manifesto and observed some writing mechanics problems, as well as a fundamental lack of understanding of how universities function and the rules that govern hiring, firing, and tenure. Embedded in there were also some good ideas that could be modified. As a Star Trek geek, I rather like the idea of an academic building named after Avery Brooks. 
They are, what, 18-20 years old? I’d cut them some slack on their presentation skills and try to separate the wheat from the chaff.
IMO, the President struck exactly the right tone - I’m willing to talk but not to be bullied. Let’s see how they respond.
I have to second the proposal to rename the building after Avery Brooks. I mean, who’s going to deny a man named Hawk!
I can see Hawk now, walking on campus, dealing with the racist townies (one sneer and watch those racist run!), protecting the students from microagressions (take off that sombrero now, before I shoot it off!), and finally, pummeling some sense into that culture appropriating food service…
While watching Avery Brooks perform his one-man act on the life of Paul Robeson during my undergrad years, got a chance to chat with a few older alums who were his Oberlin classmates.
While not confirmed, they recounted one reason why he left for Rutgers* was because he was forced out of Oberlin by admins who felt he was too adamant about protesting in favor of Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War. While embraced wholeheartedly by recent admins as an alum who made good, those alums noted he wasn’t regarded very kindly by Oberlin admins during the time he and they were undergrads there in the late '60s.
- There seems to be conflicting information on whether Brooks came back to graduate from Oberlin as Rutgers also regards him as an alum who completed both his undergrad and MFA degrees there in the early to mid-'70s:
http://www.oberlin.edu/alummag/oampast/oam_sum97/Features/brooks.html
http://www.alumni.rutgers.edu/s/896/index.aspx?sid=896&gid=1&pgid=513
Keep in mind that Oberlin regards anyone who spent at least a semester as a matriculated student as an alum eligible to join their alumni association.
My take on this is that the group that prepared the list of demands lacked effective leadership. That’s why the list contains such a hodgepodge of reasonable and silly demands–it was written by a committee, and everybody’s pet demand made it into the final document. There was nobody to say, “Wait a minute, we can’t really demand to be paid for organizing.” I see this in a lot of progressive groups–and sometimes it’s a deliberate preference to not have identifiable leaders. That doesn’t really work very well, though.
A part of this is, rightly or wrongly, their feeling this is a great way to show they are “democratic” in listening to and being inclusive of everyone’s concerns.
This deliberate preference is also one way many progressive activist groups differentiate themselves from right-wing organizations* which they perceive as rigidly hierarchical in its top-down oriented leadership/organizing as opposed to how they perceive themselves…as grassroots groups organized from the bottom up.
Agree this is not always the most effective way to effectively advocate for and accomplish one’s aims.
- They would include the Tea Party in this as from their perspective...much of their agenda is created, framed, and funded by prominent conservative leaders/fundraisers such as the Koch brothers.