Reminds me of that line from Glen Close in Fatal Attraction " I won’t be ignored "
^ ^
Qwabe does have a historically accurate point that the Rhodes’ fortune was totally due to the coercive exploitation of African lands and the natural resources which was facilitated by British Imperialism in the period.
He makes that very point when he states in that linked article:
I’m Boered.
I’m sure he indicated those feelings on his Rhodes application or during his interview. Right !?
I think the young man’s strategy is brilliant. His are the actions of a subversive in the truest sense.
This seems to be really grasping at straws for something to be outraged about. I promise, it’s no longer Rhodes’ money even if his name is attached.
But then again, I’m a hypocrite because I got a very large scholarship from KFC but I started the animal rights club at my high school, protest KFC, and have been a vegetarian for a long time. (And yes, I actually did write about that on my KFC scholarship application.)
But when you’re poor, you take what you can get, even if that means going against your morals. Sometimes, you have to bite the bullet to get to a place where you can be more powerful… even if that means using dirty money to get there.
^^Using poverty as an excuse for going against your morals, nuh uh. I grew up super poor too, and there are other paths to power that don’t require you to do bad things. Or you decide that power is not worth the loss of your integrity. But saying I was poor so I had to do this is an insult to poor people, imo.
Hmmm…would you agree to changing ‘poor’ to rich and apply the same standard…or is there a double standard?
I’d be hard pressed to call the current government an improvement over the British, or to judge Rhodes or any historical figure by contemporary standards.
I think Mary Beard got it right. The historian and Cambridge professor said students cannot ‘have their cake and eat it’ by ‘whitewashing’ him from history while still benefiting from his legacy.
cambridge is better than oxford (on a side note)
Oh…the story gets better and better…
Yes! it’s time to bring back “Freedom Fries”!
@gator88ne It doesn’t get any better. It’s simply beating the dead horse. Take a stand and don’t repost those lame stories. How many “anti-PC” threads and posts pollute this site on a weekly basis?
Is the faux-rage/protest statement by an 19 year old to be emblematic of everyone on his campus? Does it make us, as older adults, feel so much more superior?
I get it. It’s the same urge that makes us click stories about “whinging and entitled 20-somethings” – all to self-congratulate ourselves and our “wisdom” and “work ethic”
I made plenty of stupid statements and did stupid stuff at 19. I’m still making stupid statements and doing stupid stuff at 48. Wow, maybe that’ll be picked up by the NYPost or the dailycaller?!?
@t26e4 great post. It is just another article by a right leaning news source whose owners in England are notorious for not paying taxes. Yawn
@T26E4 If your "statements and “stuff” at 19, fit into the larger zeitgeist, then you too could end up in the NYpost.
The reason this story resonates with some is that it fits into a larger story of students across the US attempting to remove “names and statues” from campuses.
In this case, Qwabe, is making a fairly effective effort to remove Cecil Rhodes statute and name from campus. This isn’t the same thing as saying something inappropriate on Faceback. This story gives a little more insight into his thinking.
If these forum/stories don’t interest you, don’t click on the discussion. If most other forum readers are not interested, they will simply drop off the front page.
I think the scholarship should offer a basic course in history. Wherein, you get a lesson in presentism. When you view history through the lens of the present, it is easy to get outraged.
There is not a culture on the planet that has not been exploited, enslaved, manipulated, cheated or otherwise ill-treated. You merely need to go back far enough in history.
@Gator88NE Perhaps you’re missing my point. A handful of students at a few colleges protesting the renaming of a building or a cafeteria offering or mistletoe-labelled-as-offensive, to me, is not a “larger story” but just news for the sake of news. Click bait. Fear mongering. Tabloid stuff.
Websites, blogs, memes, talking heads on cable news, FB posts, and posts on this site – all to get people in a froth about … what? So what if General Tso’s chicken falls off the Oberlin menu or John Calhoun’s name gets dragged through the mud? Why does a newscaster want to drill presidential candidates about the latest Trump sexist barb vs Clinton rather than stay on track and ask serious questions?
Because we’re too dumb to miss the fact that real issues aren’t being addressed. This PC brouhaha on campuses – at my in-laws over Christmas, you’d think they were proposing cannibalism.
In my church fellowship, you’d thought the Starbuck’s holiday red cup was equivalent to kristallnacht – but we can’t get enough volunteers to go to the women’s shelter… SMH
These protests are not insignificant - they have led to people losing their jobs, including a University president.
^Agreed. I’m not trying to belittle areas or issues of serious consequence (Mizzou, Chgo police shooting, etc.) But there’s a strong sense that by parading more minor or petty issues, all of it can be dismissed.
The same people/websites who would blow up mistletoe at Cornell are the same ones who highlight the trace cannabis was in Trayvon Martin’s system when Zimmerman killed him.
But banning the French flag on Oxford’s campus, or anywhere else for that matter, seems significant to as well. This is not a small matter.