<p>I am perfectly willing to retract my earlier snark and stand corrected, too, if somebody can point me in the direction of more episodes of menacing bias crimes than we’ve heard about in the linked article and in this thread. I certainly admit that possibility that what gets reported in the papers might not portray accurately or adequately whatever has happened.</p>
<p>Does a Klan robe make any sense at all? The 10 guys left in the Klan aren’t in the area and arent going to go stumbling around campus in the dark in something you cant run in. </p>
<p>Also read about what happened at Grinnell last year re: overt sexual harrassment of female students. These offensive episodes on campuses known for their liberal political correctness by both admin and students suggest some otherwise intelliigent students still don’t know the difference between “stupid prank” and outright offensiveness worthy of suspension.</p>
<p>I noticed you’re continuing to harp on the latest incident rather than understanding there was a string of incidents going back several weeks. </p>
<p>I can’t help, but notice that you’re minimizing the fact students have been put on edge over racist/homophobic/anti-semitic vandalism incidents along with what seems to be more than one assault. </p>
<p>Not only is the physical assaults referenced in the local article above, I’ve heard about it from several alums who still live in the town or work for the college on the online alum group that I am a part of. </p>
<p>Problem is the one article referencing the incident I was referring to from a local regional news-site seems to be offline at the moment.</p>
<p>I think it’s because Obies are liberal firebrands (to say nothing of idealistic liberal firebrands in the way 19 and 20 year olds can be) that they have reacted so strongly to this. As an Oberlin parent, I’m absolutely fine with the administration “humoring” the students by taking this so seriously. As someone whose college was shut down in 1970 so we could all go March on Washington and grew from that experience, I’m not too worried that a day of classroom teaching forgone is going to affect my D’s future. Maybe these are naive, coddled kids, but I far prefer their reaction than “ho, hum happens all the time.”</p>
<p>There have been hoaxes at Oberlin before, so skepticism is warranted. And as I’ve told you before, I often find your stories questionable. </p>
<p>My concern is that if these things are either hoaxes or hysterical responses, then innocent young people are going to be terrorized unnecessarily. If there is a crazy person, by all means, arrest him/her/them, but I would hate to think that young people are feeling unsafe and threatened because some members of the campus community (or outsiders) have nothing better to do.</p>
<p>Likewise, especially considering some of your skepticism here falls into a pattern I’ve observed in previous conversations where you minimized my knowledge and experiences of living and growing up in the NYC area. </p>
<p>Ironic considering our difference of opinion regarding lived NYC living experiences have some bearing on this topic as your focus on emphasizing the hoax aspect of this incident is a pattern I’ve commonly seen from HS classmates and colleagues from your area of NYC which tends to be much less racially diverse and more conservative than the rest of the city with exceptions of certain neighborhoods like Bayside, Queens.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about Queens and I live in a very, very diverse neighborhood. Nice try cobrat!</p>
<p>I don’t particularly think we have differences of opinions. As I’ve posted, I find your grasp of history and willingness to share your insights quite wonderful. I also have great respect for your opinions. It is the stories surrounding those opinions and insights which I question. It often seems that you make up things to try to support your opinions, which is unnecessary beacause you are, in fact, as smart and as insightful as you portray and the stories merely detract from your wisdom and knowledge.</p>
<p>Cobrat, I am reading. I am trying to see what you’re saying.</p>
<p>So far, I see a lot of really despicable speech and behavior, and more recently a few incidents of violence or the threat of violence. Both are wrong, and both are bad, and both would make me angry if I were part of Oberlin College, but I still don’t understand what merits suspending classes. And I am not necessarily persuaded that recent violence or threats of violence necessarily make the earlier defacing of posters or the stuffing of mailboxes anything more than vile hate speech, though I suppose if I were a college administrator, I would want to err on the side of caution and safety.</p>
<p>I certainly agree with others that whoever’s behind this should be found out and punished: dismissed from the College, and prosecuted to whatever extent is possible. I absolutely agree that the College has a responsibility to ensure, as much as it can, that students, employees and visitors feel safe and secure on campus, and I am sad to see allegations that the College may not be living up to this obligation. I get that matters are somewhat worse than I had originally understood, and I’ll concede that I may still not fully appreciate just what’s going on at Oberlin. I still question the decision to suspend classes, but since I’m not an Oberlin student, alumnus, parent or employee, I don’t really have much of a stake in the matter. </p>
<p>There’s enough here that I’ll withdraw my earlier “hothouse flowers” comment, and apologize for having spoken out of turn.</p>
<p>From what I’ve gathered from the online Oberlin alum site, it was the students…especially those who were targeted in those threatening incidents over the last several weeks that called for the cancellation of classes because they were already on edge and felt the administration wasn’t doing enough to deal with their concerns. </p>
<p>In short, this shutdown was much more student driven with some faculty support than by the administration who seemed to be mostly pushed towards the cancellation.</p>
<p>It causes me to be cynical that the people most interest in this being a teachable moment just happen to be the only witness to the teachable moment. There are 3000 students at the place- the odds of a member of the African Heritage House just randomly being a witness to this seem pretty remote. </p>
<p>I’d like to hear what the Oberlin campus security come up with because it sounds like they are on to a couple of people. In any event there was no reason to cancel classes since there was never any danger.</p>
<p>The problem is that the national news media only caught onto the last incident and in the process, failed to place it in the proper context…which was that it was the last incident in a string of threatening incidents over the last several weeks which broke the camel’s back. </p>
<p>If one takes the entire series of events into evidence…the students’ desire for a day of canceled classes to discuss and alleviate the serious fearful edge they’ve been undergoing becomes more clearcut and understandable to all except those who are extremely callous and unsympathetic.</p>
<p>It’s possible that it’s a hoax–but I think it’s more likely that it is the work of a very small number of people and that it does not represent the viewpoint of a significant number of Oberlin students. If that’s the case, I do question whether people should really feel “unsafe” as a result. I don’t know enough to know if the assaults, chasing incidents, etc., really seem to have anything to do with this or not–if they do, perhaps there is some danger. Of course, a single nut can pose danger, but it’s different from a simmering undercurrent of hate among a significant number of people–something I just have trouble believing exists at Oberlin.</p>
<p>And just as an aside, if somebody wants to parade around Oberlin’s campus in Klan robes, is that prohibited by school rules? It’s certainly not against the law.</p>