I for one totally agree with these protesters that Yale’s name should be changed. If they do stand for social justice, the school should be renamed for Jeremiah Dummer, who was instrumental in the foundation of the institution. So, instead of being known as “Yalies”, graduates of that school will forever be known as “Dummies”. *
"but when those applicants arrive on campus, they often feel like an afterthought, as if they’re gatecrashers. "
There’s not a single new college student who doesn’t sometimes feel lonely, sad, scared, out of place, afraid he/she won’t make friends, etc. I think sometimes those experiences are considered to happen only to marginalized folks and the universality is ignored.
“Racism IS alive and thriving in our country. If you are black you DO have a greater chance of ending up in prison, profiled and detained by police, and or killed… you have lower economic advantages and failing schools… Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps mentality isn’t working…”
It seems to work in many Asian enclaves, where immigrants come here often without much more than the clothes on their backs, and somehow they seem to have less drop-out rates and more next-gen success. Why is that? Not everything can be the white man’s fault all the time.
“While maybe that is going too far, at the very least, I think the oppressed in our country have a right to question the continued glorification of historical figures who have had a part in actively repressing the black race.”
“Glorification”? That’s a little dramatic. The residents of Calhoun are not required to bow down in homage.
But yeah, the fact that now the 200 or so black Yale students no longer have to walk by a hall named Calhoun will be a huge comfort to the families of innocent black people who get disproportionately roughed up or shot at during routine traffic stops. I’m sure Philando Castile’s family is immensely comforted by that.
Future generations are going to judge our generation. In many areas, our generation is not going to look good.
There is white privilege in this country. When people push for equality, the priviliged class thinks they are oppressed. The privileged class is not oppressed. I am a white male.
There was a paper that came out this week. It is estimated it will take over 200 years for blacks to become economically equal to whites.
My daughter bought a house last year. The original deed, the house was built in the 1950’s, said you can’t sell to people of color. The house is a few miles from SF.
One of the most financially successful groups in this country is Nigerian immigrants. Fortunately they didn’t get the “white privilege” memo:
None of the college students protesting were born in the 1950s.
A whole lot of people born in the 50s received wealth transfers from parents, who were able to buy property, and now pass that wealth on in various ways to their own children and grandchildren. The circumstances of their birth doesn’t make them bad people. However, acknowledging the very good luck and privilege of those circumstances seems appropriate to me.
The grandchildren of someone very middle class in the 50s benefit if that individual was able to own a home. The benefits of generations of home ownership and property ownership are almost incalculable, it seems to me. We aren’t born onto a level playing field.
People today are still affected by policies of the 1950’s. It takes a long time for effects of change to permeate throughout society. We still have policies in place to perpetuate the classes. Maybe we always will.
There has always been a conflict between those who want to keep the status quo and those who push for change.
http://wesa.fm/post/historian-says-dont-sanitize-how-our-government-created-ghettos#stream/0
What alh wrote is correct.
from the link in post 85.
I am just guessing these immigrants were property owners in their home countries.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
Let’s try a different tack at this before this gets shut down for being a race thread.
When a college or a building gets named because of a donation, what obligations does the college have for keeping the name? I certainly don’t expect a college to keep a name if it finds out after the fact that the donor was a Nazi member, but if the college accepts the donation knowing the nature of the giver, doesn’t it have an obligation to keep the name? (Yes, I know this situation doesn’t apply to Calhoun College, but it would to Yale itself).
Re: class and privilege
As long as we are (more or less) free to rise or fall on our own, there will be socioeconomic classes. The only way to a classless society is through a 100% planned economy, and that not only puts the kibosh on liberty, but it’s also inefficient.
So I don’t particularly want a classless society. I don’t see a problem there, as long as there is mobility for those who work hard, obey the rules, and are willing to take the necessary risks to achieve it.
Equality of opportunity - not equality of outcome - is a much more reachable goal within the context of classical liberalism. 
“Whatever happened to racial and gender inequality issues?”
@texaspg – you don’t think acknowledging slave ownership by a man put on a pedestal by a major American institution of learning as as racial issue?
Look, there are educated people in this country who have no clue that slaves built the White House. That’s not a good thing. The more we talk about our history openly the better for us all. We hold it against Japan that they haven’t acknowledged their WW2 crimes but we think college students are wrong to bring up and criticize a 200-year tradition of slavery that helped build this country? Just to what extent are we willing to kid ourselves?
Some of the larger Asian immigrant groups tend to have high educational attainment among the immigrants (e.g. 50% of Chinese and 70% of Indian immigrants have bachelor’s or higher degrees). High educational attainment parents tend to have kids who eventually reach high levels of education.
Of course, this observation requires looking past the superficially visible aspects of race and ethnicity. Some European and African immigrant groups are similar in this respect, but not as visible in this respect due to being small in number compared to other white and black people in the US. Note that, for the Nigerian example mentioned above, the linked article says that two thirds of Nigerian immigrants have college degrees.
It seems to me not all of us have been free to rise and fall on our own, or at least our parents or grandparents weren’t free to do so. That impacts their descendants. I don’t see much equality of opportunity myself. A lot of white folks who object to the idea of white privilege don’t seem to see equality of opportunity either. I get it.
Most people seem to support equality of opportunity in the abstract. But not so much when it comes to the details. Consider the estate tax and the considerable opposition to it (even though it affects only about 0.14% of estates).
A few years ago, someone calculated that an income of about $32,000 put you in the top 1%, worldwide. The global median salary was around $1000 per year.
The median income in the United States is about $40,000 per year, meaning that most people in the US are in the global 1%. Whereas so many people who grow up here see themselves as victims, immigrants see this as a land of boundless opportunity.
For those who grow up in this country in a home with good nutrition, considering yourself as a victim must be one of the most self-destructive behaviors around.
I’m opposed to it, especially now that I’m in the midst of doing some overdue estate planning. Why shouldn’t I be free to transfer as much darn wealth as I want to my kids? I got taxed on it when I earned it already. And I earned it honestly. None of my ancestors had slaves. We were the peasants of E Europe.
“you don’t think acknowledging slave ownership by a man put on a pedestal by a major American institution of learning as as racial issue?”
If you take his name away and pretend he never existed, you’re not acknowledging the history. If instead you teach about him - both the good and bad - you are acknowledging history.
PG: Did you have time to read Dstark’s link yet? I think it is excellent.
You probably have wealth to transfer because you own property of some kind. Your parents and your spouse’s parents owned property that probably appreciated in value during your lifetime and their lifetime. Dstark wrote recently his daughter’s house had appreciated in the year she had owned it.
Dstark and I are posting links to articles where people either weren’t allowed to own property or the property they did own was artificially and deliberately kept from appreciating. You benefited economically from being white, even if your ancestors were peasants. You benefited from policies you did not have anything to do with creating or supporting. It just is what it is.
I am in favor of an estate tax and removing a name does not mean you are not acknowledging history.
I don’t feel like writing all the reasons why I am in favor of an estate tax. Those reasons can be googled. I also understand that people wouldn’t want to pay an estate tax.
I am ok with different economic classes. I want people to be able to get rich or wealthy. Not acknowledging that there is racism and bigotry in this country, that people don’t have equal opportunity, is absurd.
I also don’t like telling people who have suffered from bigotry how to feel or think.