<p>lol @ 6y6y6y6y6y6y6y6</p>
<p>Intellectually disingenuous.......come on now. If you're man enough to put the words online, be man enough to defend them. </p>
<p>You wrote "That's because "hate crimes" are a sad farce, injuring nobody but the members of the victimization-industrial complex .........MORE funding and institutional support for 'diversity' 'sensitivity' 'ethic studies' and other hogwash ........... all at the expense of the Core that makes Columbia so great and me so envious of it ....."</p>
<p>You've made your point clear, as did I. You call "hate crimes" farces....hmm, perhaps these Columbia incidents are blown out of proportion but that's more because of where they happened than anything else. There are plenty of victims of hate crimes who have been deeply harmed, mentally abused or killed as part of your "farces". The real shame is that the dollars thrown at diversity (which aren't that large I can assure you) isn't producing change fast enough.</p>
<p>Victim-industrialization complex...did you learn that term at a summer course at Bob Jones Univ? Ah, no because conservative Christians view themselves as victims too... so that can't be it.</p>
<p>If you want to revel in the glories of the Western canon and not have to ensure the inconvenient sufferings of non-white people, you should really go to school in North Dakota, Scotland or Scandinavia. Or Dartmouth - they'll give you the "purity" you seek.</p>
<p>If you actually look into these incidents, you'll find that the best way to deal with such pity nonsense would be to ignore them.</p>
<p>Instead of ignoring them we got a full-blown sensitivity crisis and loads of publicity which has resulted in--surprise surprise, more copycat nooses showing up around the country.</p>
<p>Once again I don't appreciate being branded a racist because of my deep philosophical disagreements with any corporatist solution to racism</p>
<p>@red&blue:wow! highly intellectual reply!
And yeah I got your point-you are not in an way adverse towards internationals.
Thanks and (sorry!).</p>
<p>Bagels, the way to deal with hate crimes should be proportionate to the crime itself (so physical attacks, murders, intense psychological assaults merit strong responses; racist graffiti and such should be catalogued and announced but doesn't require a "show of force"), but in NO case should hate crimes be ignored. That is my perspective; blacks I think tolerate too many hate crimes silently; Muslims are starting to find a voice of outrage for hate crimes; Jews have zero tolerance. </p>
<p>But few groups ignore hate crimes which is what you advocate. That approach simply lets this social cancer fester and deepen. It's an implicit approval of hateful activities, which are against what American means to so many.</p>
<p>I didn't attack you as racist; I think your statements and perspective are biased and extremely uninformed. I can only hope this exchange has made you consider another view on hate crimes. </p>
<p>A balanced approach to these issues is what's needed, but it has to be an approach (not silent complicity). God Bless the American Ideal, my friend.</p>
<p>I'm with Bagels on this - the whole idea of "hate crime" is hokey and exists because there are a group of people who make a living from being "victims" - Jackson, Sharpton, etc.</p>
<p>The Upper West Side is not some hotbed of racism - if someone hung a noose on a TC professors door it was either the professor herself (this has been known to happen) or had nothing to do with "racism" in the classic Mississippi Burning sense. The last real lynching by hanging in the US took place perhaps in the 1930s - there is hardly anyone alive who remembers a "real" lynching (thank goodness). We are long past that, but some people have an interest in making us believe that we aren't - that Upper West Side 2007 is the same as Alabama 1927. The publicity generated by these "hate crimes" does not contribute to social peace - it just stirs up more ill feeling. </p>
<p>It's easy to be over-inclusive and label as "hate" thing that aren't - this Halloween there were all sorts of cases of people being accused because they hung up some dummy with a noose - the same dummy with a noose that they have been hanging for the last 20 years but now suddenly they are "racists" without even knowing it. </p>
<p>If there is a physical attack or a murder, we already have plenty of laws against that and the jury/sentencing judge can take racist or other bad motives into account on sentencing. "Psychological assault", graffiti, etc. fall into a gray area - remember that the First Amendment is there expressly to protect unpopular speech - we don't need a Constitution to protect our right to say things that everyone agrees with anyway. So what good are these laws other than for ensnaring the unwary so they can have a show trial for the public, a modern PC version of McCarthyism? Are you now or have you ever been a racist? Remember the famous "Water Buffalo" case at Penn? (Google it if you don't). I think the case of Imus is illustrative - in retrospect, was it worth ruining this man's career because of one careless remark?</p>
<p>I should add that all the attention about "racism" only takes away from the real crisis of black people in America - that of black on black crime. The same crisis that is spilling over onto the Penn campus and threatening all the good work that has been done to improve Penn. There were over 400 murders in Philadelphia alone last year and the vast majority of these were young black males killing other young black males. If there was even one real lynching in Philadelphia then Al Sharpton would be screaming so loud that you would be able to hear it without a radio, but somehow 400 murders (and thousands and thousands more all across America) are no problem because they are not "racist" murders. Why wasn't Jesse Jackson marching around the Bongo Club?</p>
<p>Good question.</p>