“You’re suppose to be our advocate!”
The Yale student who confronted the House Master is now called “Shrieking Girl.”
And a big HAHA! to so-called safe spaces.
How on earth will these special snowflakes function once they graduate?
She goes on to offer advice from her husband, the master of Silliman, suggesting: “If you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended.” Christakis and her husband should both know that while that might be a simple enough response theoretically—like parents who tell a child to simply ignore a bully—in practice, coping with cultural offense can be much more fraught, especially for students who feel isolated and unsupported by the larger community. Christakis’s proposed tactic puts the burden of confrontation, education, and maturity on the offended, not the offender, asking them to quell their anger, hurt, or fear in order to have a rational and mind-expanding conversation with those who have hurt them.
Exactly…
Was the SAE incident even proven legit?
I think the advice to ignore an offense is fine if it is a minor one. If somebody is wearing a loud, quacking costume, it might be highly obnoxious and annoying and offensive, but you might just ignore it. I don’t think minor offenses are the issue, though.
I also don’t think really major ones (KKK/swastika/blackface) are the issue either; unless you live under a rock, you know not to dress this way, and these types of outfits lead to official disciplinary consequences. So, I don’t think the email is really intended to address this type of offense either.
What we are really talking about are the offenses that are more than minor but less than actionable; ones that are potentially hurtful to a group of students but might be hard to describe or list in advance. These types of offenses are best resolved interpersonally. It’s not really possible to list every type of offense that could occur in advance.
In the real world, the burden of correction and education is typically on the more mature and enlightened of the two parties. I don’t think anybody advised the offendee to quell their anger, hurt or fear; the advice is to express these things in a civil and personal way.
If I have transgressed, there is nothing more effective than somebody approaching me and telling me how I have offended them. I am far more apt to change my entire outlook on such matters if I am approached and corrected and educated in a personal way by a peer. Isn’t it possible that this is what the Master’s wife meant to express?
" and her husband should both know that while that might be a simple enough response theoretically—like parents who tell a child to simply ignore a bully—in practice, coping with cultural offense can be much more fraught, especially for students who feel isolated and unsupported by the larger community. "
Well, yes. Because that’s how the big world works. If something you do bothers me, I politely approach you with my concerns and we work it out. I don’t go running to my mommy or point at other people and pout til they solve it.
Well, college isn’t quite the big world yet, but we do need to try to get these kids ready for the big world. So, there does need to be some acknowledgement that some of these kids might not be quite ready for adult ways of handling things.
I just think it’s more effective to change the world one on one.
Example: I have a beautiful sombrero that I bought in Mexico. If I were going to a school costume party and the university said, “NO sombreros or Mexican garb because we have decided it is culturally offensive,” I would not wear the sombrero, of course. But I might be annoyed and grumble about “special interests” and never really understand what the problem is.
But if, instead, the university issued no such guideline and I actually wore that sombrero…and somebody approached me…somebody I go to class with; who lives in my community; who I know; who I care about…and told me that the costume bothered him/her and why…well, it’s just as likely I’d go home and change on the spot. And think about what I was told. And maybe change my outlook on such things permanently.
This is the value of letting personal correction happen. It’s just the most effective way to change people in the long run.
" proposed tactic puts the burden of confrontation, education, and maturity on the offended, not the offender, asking them to quell their anger, hurt, or fear in order to have a rational and mind-expanding conversation with those who have hurt them."
Well, we wouldn’t want to ever expect anyone to quell their anger, hurt, or (exaggerated) fear, would we? No, part of being oppressed is that you get to wallow. Only those with privilege have to suck it up.
Look, no one was walking around with a KKK costume or blackface, and despite what C-Fang claims, it’s clear that’s not considered acceptable. We are talking about things where reasonable people might differ on the degree of offensiveness.
God forbid someone actually act empowered and politely say - can I talk to you about that costume and why it bothers me and we can learn from one another? No, better to act disempowered and ask the White People in Charge to solve it and whine if they don’t.
I agree with al2simon. Both Dean Howard and Emily Christakus had thoughtful, reasoned positions. They just happened to be slightly different. Neither was “blackface bad, punishment will ensue” or “blackface good, carry on with impunity” and frankly I’m disappointed in the posters who are willfully misrepresenting either side as such.
“If the students and most are reading it that way, and thus having that negative effect, shouldn’t there be some sort of clarification made? The fact that none (that I know of) has been made suggests that the “unfair mischaracterization” is the actual intended meaning.”
What makes you think that “most” are reading it that way? We’ve heard specific complaints from how many students out of the 5000+ undergrads at Yale?
If she intended to publicly announce “Screw you black kids, nobody gives a damn about you” to the entire college, then that is certainly a disqualification from being a college master. But that’s (a) not reflected in the text (b) equivalent to aiming a gun at her own career. Does that interpretation make any sense to you?
I’ve been following this thread but this is my first post. After reading about the role of a Master and associate master here and in the Tablet article, written by a Yale prof, posted above, I’m wondering if the Yale model of houses with in-house parent figures is infantilizing. Maybe regular dorms where the RAs are fellow students, and who help mediate issues, is a better transition to adulthood than living with faculty who are supposed to create a homey, safe space. Also, at both my kids’ schools, lots of kids live off campus by the time they are juniors/seniors. They’re learning how to manage apt living with peers on their own. This house system almost seems to stunt personal growth.
Regarding these posts:
Post #398:
“I find it interesting folks like Hunt insist students at colleges…including elite ones like Yale or Harvard can settle and decide this for themselves. Judging by the rash of recent incidents on many campuses…including elite ones…I can understand the perspectives of those who disagree.”
Post #422:
Christakis’s proposed tactic puts the burden of confrontation, education, and maturity on the offended, not the offender, asking them to quell their anger, hurt, or fear in order to have a rational and mind-expanding conversation with those who have hurt them.
I’d like to believe that students, particularly those so bright, could deal with these issues on their own, or at least I’d want to give them the opportunity to try to do so. For instance, from another thread where a prospective student is asking how liberal tufts is, look at what happened at Tufts at a Halloween frat party:
“A frat party got shut down last night because (a latino) kid wore a poncho as his Halloween costume and someone called the police because he was appropriating Mexican culture. So.”
Seems like the kids handled this on their own, although it would have been far better for them to open a dialogue rather than call the police to shut the party down.
I thought we had pretty much established that this mainly concerned the residents of Silliman for whom the Christakises were acting in loco parentis. The main disagreement seems to be just how good their parenting skills really are?
The author of the article in Tablet raises precisely the question I’ve always asked when female students complain about misogyny at certain fraternity houses: "Then WHY do you and other women continue to go there? Stop going en masse and things will change FAST. You have power: use it. " Unfortunately there are apparently not enough young women with sufficient self respect to put something like that into action. Too many prefer to run after the approval of the alpha males.
And before you start telling me that I am condoning bad behavior by young men and slut shaming…oh, what’s the use.
"The author of the article in Tablet raises precisely the question I’ve always asked when female students complain about misogyny at certain fraternity houses: "Then WHY do you and other women continue to go there? Stop going en masse and things will change FAST. You have power: use it. "
Exactly.
Interesting comments by a former student named JohhnyO from the thread linked above.
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/11/03/burroughs-just-say-it/#comment-2350641130
"As a former Yale grad student, undergraduates have a pretty myopic view of these kinds of issues and where they apply. When I first came to the university 6 years ago, I remember near cross campus a female student standing dressed up in a poncho and sombrero holding an empty tequila bottle and acting drunk as some kind of hazing for one of the societies. My friends and I were suitably appalled, yet of the hundreds of students walking by her, where were the protests, the outrage? And what about the society members wandering around campus in black robes and eerie white masks? These are disturbing racially-charged symbols that undergrads seem to have no problem with (on the other hand, grad students and residents are regularly disturbed by them). Not to mention the big job fairs students flock to filled with companies who have established themselves on elitist, racist policies. It seems compunctions about social justice have little value when it comes to self-promotion and job canvassing. What I find most appalling and most hypocritical about these desires for campus safe-spaces and concern for campus relations is how students at Yale of all stripes regularly repeat these various aggressions against New Havenites and people of the wider community, without any concern as to how they are marginalizing those who share the city with them.
When undergraduates go on college sponsored benders at different clubs, how socio-economically exclusive are these events? Do they have any idea they are moving into a non-university space, a space belonging to all of New Haven, taking it over, and excluding and leaving out everyone who usually goes there to get a drink? I’ve seen regulars at bars turned away because the Yale kids had to have their exclusive fun at a bar other people frequent. How many of them shy away from walking around New Haven (“don’t go on the Green”), avoiding interactions with everyone not associated with your small university clique in the city and then treat outsiders in New haven with disdain, fear? From what I have seen, Yale students are excellent at colonizing the public spaces of New Haven, excluding all people who do not match their level of privilege, and forming a Yale-only space that takes no account of the community. Yale regularly shuts down streets, Yale students take over space on moving day with no concern as to how it affects New Havenites going about their jobs. Yale students regularly blare music and disrupt campus space so they can have their college fun at the expense of professionals and service workers (as well as average residents) going about their business. I won’t even mention the thousands of microaggressions I observed in my time perpetrated by Yale undergraduates on New Haven residents, nor the way the university has aggressively destroyed New Haven small business culture and non-privilege-centric businesses in the name of making the city safe and appealing for you undergrads. The university and students displace residents and destroy family businesses, drive up housing prices, without a care in the world, without a peep. Where’s the outcry from students about this? Have they ever considered that because of them and their institution and the army of administrators looking out for, standing behind, and protecting them that many New Havenites don’t feel safe in their own city, that they are challenged, belittled, criticized, and at the mercy of the Yale undergrads who have so many layers of protection and a full police force defending their interests? Where are the reminders to treat New Haven residents with respect? Is it the case that sensitivity need only apply on campus? It seems that the need to make other feel safe and be sensitive to others’ issues stops at the edge of campus. The students called Master Christakis disgusting; it is undergrads who are disgusting, flaunting their provilege and powers one minute, buying into and benefitting from the systemic racism, classism, and elitism from Yale and then claiming opposition to and innocence from it the next."
It’s a collective action problem. While the young women could change the frats’ behavior if they stuck together, one individual woman can do nothing, and there’s a ton of incentive for an individual to cheat if the women try to work collectively. While I agree that they should band together and make the frat guys shape up, I don’t think that’s so simple to execute.
“When I first came to the university 6 years ago, I remember near cross campus a female student standing dressed up in a poncho and sombrero holding an empty tequila bottle and acting drunk as some kind of hazing for one of the societies. My friends and I were suitably appalled, yet of the hundreds of students walking by her, where were the protests, the outrage?”
Note the passivity. My group of friends were outraged, but we sat and waited for others to protest, instead of figuring out polite, civil ways to express how troubled we were. Apparently the only means of discourse is protest.
^^^^And, these students get so used to the university or some other overseer setting the policy that they have lost their own voices.
I’ve been thinking about this story in the context of the costume I wore this Halloween, which I thought of as “Badass.” Instead of my normal suburban mom look I went with short, spiked green hair, heavy black makeup, (fake) tattoos and a leather jacket. My kids thought it was hysterical and I surprised a few friends, but I can envision someone thinking I was making fun of butch women.
If someone had come to my door and cussed me out for appropriating LBGTQ culture I would have slammed the door in their face. If someone had respectfully told me my costume made them uncomfortable we could have had a conversation. I might have learned something about their feelings and they would have learned that I have close LGBTQ relatives and I meant no disrespect with my costume. I think we would both have come away from such a conversation feeling positive instead of angry.
I’ve had plenty of difficult conversations about race, politics, religion and sexuality with people with whom I fundamentally disagree. I don’t always or even often come out of these conversations having changed my mind, but it’s at least helpful and enlightening to hear someone else’s views directly from them.
Has she even apologized to Master Christakis for cursing at him and calling him names? In many institutions one would be expelled for that kind of behavior! Lets get real here… students need to understand that can’t act like that in the real world and or business… we need to not argue about the adults that acted civilly in this -regardless if you disagree with motives/intentions/ effect…
If you curse at someone and call them derogatory names at work you will be fired and most likely sued in this day and age. Does she and the other students understand this isn’t acceptable behavior?
“The students called Master Christakis disgusting; it is undergrads who are disgusting, flaunting their provilege and powers one minute, buying into and benefitting from the systemic racism, classism, and elitism from Yale and then claiming opposition to and innocence from it the next.”
Students at Yale (or any similar school) weren’t just randomly assigned there. They worked hard - incredibly hard, and for some of the people we are talking about, against tremendous odds - precisely because they wanted to a university that represented the elite, the cream of the crop academically. I find it disingenuous to strive to get into Yale (et al) and then claim it represents privilege and elitism. Of course it does! That’s why you worked your butts off to go there - because it’s better than East Nowhere State U.