@cobrat The spelling of the “bundle of sticks” sense varies. There are sources (Merriam-Webster among them) that differentiate between the 1-g word and the one with a pair of g’s, but others (including the equally authoritative - in my view - Oxford Dictionary of English) which don’t.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/(word)
We’re very much in agreement that the meaning of a word or expression can change over time - that’s the first point I made in my post above.
What I don’t understand is the need they feel to whitewash history. By renaming these places and removing the influence of previous slave owners and racist men, are we not white washing the history of our Universities and society?
Personally, I think that it is dangerous to act as though this did not happen, that these manner of people were never powerful or influential and even exclusive of minorities both racial and economic. It is in many ways a way of removing the reality of the oppression by white men. I could understand if classes taught in these buildings censored the history of these men and their motivations but how is removing them from the University any different?
As a minority of sorts, I think it is highly important that these figures remain visible and apparent to us, so that we do not forget the reality of this countries history, this does not mean that we have to live beneath it.
It doesn’t seem to me that the Princeton students are demanding similar types of activism. The people protesting the police are trying to hold the police accountable for murders. The Princeton students are asking for what, in the scheme of things, are some fairly minor changes: some courses, some new professors, an affinity house or area, renaming things, yadda yadda. If they get most of their demands met, fifteen years from now it’s not going to make much difference to any white Princeton student.
I don’t see what’s wrong with your translation of “check your privilege.” People get criticized all the time on CC for speaking authoritatively about things they don’t have direct experience with, and instead relying on their friends or cousins for information.
It’s possible to rename a building without “whitewashing” history.
A plaque could be placed there, explaining why it was renamed, for instance.
The protesters see Princeton as the one doing the whitewashing, since they have Wilson things around but no discussion of his racism. Some article I read recently addresses this, how Wilson is featured in college tour schpiels and such, but only the good stuff.
After all, the definition of whitewash is:
deliberately attempt to conceal unpleasant facts about (a person or organization).
Excuse me, are you claiming that right now, or let’s say one year ago, Princeton was open about Wilson’s racism? Are you saying that while trumpeting his contributions to Princeton and the nation, Princeton also emphasized that he was a stone-cold racist who deliberately threw black men out of civil service jobs so that government service would be a job for white people? I’m sorry, I haven’t seen this.
My dad went to Princeton and remained somewhat active in his alumni group for his entire life, plus I grew up in New Jersey, so I’ve casually seen mentions of Wilson in various Princeton publications and events since I was a little girl. Never ever did I hear a peep about his racism. THAT’S whitewashing.
I don’t disagree with the idea of having a plaque to discuss it and I do think that it is important to have conversations about race and ethnicity as it relates to the university.
But I also worry about the censorship issues on college campuses in general though. For example, the Halloween debacle at Yale. I think that certain costumes are highly offensive but I think also that there should never be an institutional policy against it. You have every right to wear an insensitive costume, I would argue for your right to do that but I still think you’re very ignorant. The value of acceptance and awareness lies in the fact that it is a personal decision to be more open, not an institutional rule or law. I find the idea of blanket speech rules and restrictions to be shallow and also kind of scary.
@OHMomof2 do you have a link to that article? I would like to read it 
I noticed when I was at Yale there was a very interesting conversation going on during a tour about John Calhoun, who makes Wilson look like a saint.
@“Cardinal Fang” I am not claiming anything about Princeton’s curriculum. I think that they should be accountable for insuring the education of their students and I would hope that they would care to mention these manner of things. At Yale, they discuss John Calhoun’s immense racism pretty openly. What I meant is that sometimes people have the goal of removing the history of our oppression from society and that I think, to a certain degree, removing names of prominate racists might suggest that they did not have the power and influence that they did.
I’ve been mulling over whether it makes a difference whether the people who named the institution knew about the issue with the person at the time of the naming. Obviously, what Wilson did as president wasn’t a secret, and the people of Princeton certainly could have known about it. This is also the case with Calhoun at Yale, and with Robert E. Lee, George Washington, and others. On the other hand, as an example, there may well be stuff named after Bill Cosby, which would be a different situation.
So perhaps there’s an argument that if the institution named something after a person, knowing what we know now, that’s part of the history of the institution, and perhaps shouldn’t be changed–rather, efforts should be made to portray the full story.
@warbrain As a straight WASP male who’s never endured poverty, war, famine, or any similar ill, I believe I nevertheless have the right to hold views on gay marriage, policing, anti-poverty policies, ordinances to combat sexism or racism, and more. My views would generally be supportive of these marginalized groups, as it happens, but that doesn’t mean others aren’t entitled to their preference for civil unions, or their view that forceful policing lowers crime, or their belief that welfare traps the poor in a cycle of dependency. I believe a reasoned debate over these views would be far more productive than telling the people in question to “check their privilege.”
“You’re only saying that because you don’t understand what I’ve been through” is an argument one must support with facts. It does not constitute its own proof - and saying “check your privilege” is a statement tantamount to “You don’t understand. Stop talking.” It does not foster rational argument, nor does it show even a modicum of respect for another’s.
Here is a distinction my kids taught me. I can speak for myself and maybe for my affinity group. It is not good manners for me to speak for someone else or a different affinity group. That is, at the very least, presumptuous.
Once I started paying attention, it surprised me how often I was speaking for others. It is a difficult habit for me to stop. I had to recognize my worldview isn’t universal, or necessarily correct.
Princeton was still known as the Ivy with the most conservative student body among the Ivies when I was in HS in the early-mid '90s and several older URM HS classmates who attended Princeton were so put off by the dismissive attitudes from the student body dominated by upper/upper-middle class White boarding/private day school graduates of that era when they attended in the early '90s they felt compelled to relate their accounts to younger classmates…especially URMs so if they decide to apply and attend P if admitted, they are going into it with their eyes wide open.
Incidentally, some of those very same factors were ones which attracted many young conservatives/libertarian-right HS classmates to apply to P.
In contrast, the URM classmates from their year and my graduating class who attended H or Y didn’t encounter anywhere to the same degree of such attitudes from the student bodies on their respective campuses in the same period. Some of the H or Y URM HS alum/classmates who heard the P accounts felt relieved at having “dodged the bullet” by going elsewhere.
Also, H & Y accepted 4-5 times the number of students each from my and 2 earlier graduating classes which reflected their greater openness in admitting public magnet and public school students compared with P in that period.
A phenomenon which was discussed and confirmed by a few other CC posters familiar with the history of Princeton’s admission policies and the change in the late '90s which caused them to be much more open to admitting public school graduates.
According to my Wilson College student, very few of the non protesting students took the “remove Wilson’s name from all buildings” part of the protest seriously. According to him, a lot of students understand stuff like the mural, which was put in relatively recently, can be problematic and I doubt there would be much concern if it was removed. From what he told me, it seemed that the more serious parts of the protest were about the demand for new distribution requirements and the “true” meaning of free speech.
Be that as it may, refusing to entertain an argument due to the messenger’s membership (or lack thereof) of a group at the center of the discussion is a dangerous stance.
Can we Americans shut down any discussion of our response to 9/11 (which included invading two countries) by telling foreigners “You weren’t attacked by Al-Qaeda. Check your privilege?” That’s essentially what many said in 2003 (minus the specific turn of phrase), and now it turns out the outsider’s perspective may have been right after all.
I personally will always come down on the side of hearing a viewpoint out rather than shutting all discussion down, however, reprehensible I may find another’s argument. Even if my opinion doesn’t change, I may learn something new in the process.
And as if things could possibly get any more controversial - an ad campaign covers a NYC subway car with flags of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to advertise Amazon’s TV series, The Man in the High Castle - an “alternate history” series where the axis powers were victorious.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/subway-nazi-ads-man-in-the-high-castle_56538711e4b0258edb32a3ed
After public outcry Amazon is removing them by end of the day.
If Erika Christakis has seen the response to Amazon’s somewhat misguided decision, she probably feels vindicated in her view that rational adults can police such things themselves.
I am trying to imagine an everyday scenario in which, while honoring someone for a particular contribution, we at the same time list their sins and mistakes. “And now, let’s welcome the valedictorian of the class of 2015. Ms. Jones maintained a GPA of 4.49 while pursuing a rigorous and advanced curriculum. She is a National Merit Finalist, a National AP Scholar, and President of the Student Council. However, it should be noted that in 9th grade she did receive the grade of F on an Algebra II midterm, and as a sophomore she delivered an ineffective election speech and was defeated in the race for class secretary…” Or “This year’s nominee for Excellence in Community Service is Mr. Brown. As President the Concerned Citizens of State University, he created a series of successful initiatives to improve the lives of our student body…I would be remiss, though, it I did not call to your attention the fact that when he was 19 he refused to join the Black Lives Matter demonstration on campus and his junior year roommate claims he was a slob.”
Honors are situational and specific, and do not constitute a universal recommendation of the individual. We can honor an actor’s performance in a movie even though he cheated on his wife. We can honor President Obama’s achievement in becoming the first AA President without issuing a blanket seal of approval for every policy he enacted.
There’s already some outcry from some conservative/libertarian-right posters on friends’ postings on this and similar articles about the public outcry being “censorship” and “violating free speech”.
The rest of the posters are rolling their eyes at such comments or giving them reminders about how 1. The outcry was the public’s exercise of free speech…not censoring Amazon’s “free speech” rights 2. Amazon was the one who pulled it down…not the MTA and 3. Even if the courts end up getting involved…in practice…commercial speech(Amazon’s ad) tends to be given less protection in most precedent setting court rulings on free speech than political speech.
Maybe. Sometimes. As Charles Barkley once said, “Just because I can dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” But giving someone a specific honor for a specific activity (winning an Oscar in a movie, as an example) is different than naming a school or a building after someone.
I do think that there is a point to be made that when you name a school or a building after someone (not a donor) you are doing more than providing an honor for a particular event. I think you are saying that the individual proved to be a person of substance over a significant period of time, which of necessity should include a weighing of both the positive and negative things the individual accomplished, within the context of their time. I am not saying that there should be some litmus test. But there is nothing wrong with an acknowledgment that Wilson, while a person of consequence on the world stage and a pivotal figure in the intellectual history of the university, was also a virulent racist.
If someone who donates $50 million to a university can get a building named after them (or even one of the university’s colleges, as with the Kilachand Honors College at BU), I don’t know how much of a statement building names are on the character of the name’s bearer.
If big donors can be honored, even when it’s anyone’s guess how they earned their money, I think a president’s mixed legacy can be acknowledged without removing his name from the graduate school.